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10
MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
Reference to the statistics relating to the Health Visitors shows
a decrease in the number of home visits they were able to make
during the year. This was partly due to an increased number of
ante-natal clinics, previously reported as being necessary and established
in 1946, which reduced the time available for home visiting,
and partly to the illness of one of the Health Visitors, who was away
ill for two months. Her absence not only resulted in the loss of
visits which she herself would have carried out, but also the loss
of time available to the other two Health Visitors as a result of
them having to be present at the two or three clinics weekly which
she would otherwise have attended.
So far as the clinics are concerned, it is interesting to note that
in 1938, 146 expectant mothers attended the ante-natal clinic and
made a total number of attendances of 348. In 1947, 511, or threeand-a-half
times as many attended, and made 2,017 attendances,
or nearly six times as many as in 1938, an average attendance per
session of 20 in 1947, contrasted with seven in 1938. It is obvious
from these figures that despite the fact that additional ante-natal
clinics were established in 1946, unless the clinics are to be overcrowded,
additional clinics are really necessary.
In 1938, 692 children made 7,352 attendances, a weekly average,
of 142; in 1947, 1,401 children made 10,920 attendances, a weekly
average of 213, or an increase of exactly 50 per cent, on the 1938
attendances. From these figures it will be seen that the clinics
are more than well used.
With the increase of work resulting from new duties introduced
in recent years, it has become increasingly obvious that the number
of Health Visitors in this Borough could quite well have been increased
in order to cope with the additional work at the clinics and
to increase the available home visiting time. Owing to the war
and the shortage of Health Visitors, the possibility of obtaining
an additional Health Visitor has been remote. Now that the County
are taking over the Health Visiting staff, no doubt the necessity
to employ at least an additional Health Visitor for this part of the
division will be borne in mind.
During the year, leaflets setting out all the maternity and child
welfare provisions and information likely to be of use to expectant
mothers and mothers of children were prepared by the department,
printed in the form of a leaflet and distributed with the kind cooperation
of the Ministry of Food through the local Food Office
and, of course, by the staff of the Public Health Department. This
dissemination of information proved to be of considerable use to
the mothers and expectant mothers in the Borough and has brought
to their notice information of services available of which they might
otherwise have been ignorant.