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The milk powder is received in bulk in hermetically sealed
canisters, is packed by the Council's own staff, and only the estimated
required quantity is weighed up daily so as to ensure as
far as possible, the Milk being fresh when supplied to applicants.
Samples from each consignment have been submitted for
chemical analysis and bacteriological examination, and found to
be satisfactory. Stock books, authorised vouchers, showing receipts
and issues are kept, and monthly stocktakings are carried
out.
Dried Milk can be obtained from the various distributing centres
by Nursing and Expectant Mothers for their own consumption
or for the use of children under three years of age in accordance
with a Scale adopted by the Council. Dried Milk can also
be obtained for the use of children between three and five years
of age, but in such cases a medical certificate must be supplied
in respect of each child.
Any nursing mother experiencing difficulty in preparing the
milk should send a Post Card to the Medical Officer of Health at
the Municipal Health Offices, Romford Road, Stratford, when a
Health Visitor will call and give all the information necessary.
Home Helps.
The Home Help Scheme continues to be fully utilised and
appreciated. A Home Help is a woman, approved as suitable by
the Health Visitor, who is employed by the Council to assist in the
Homes during the lying-in period of certain necessitous women.
The Home Help attends daily for fourteen days, and is present in
the home during the confinement to obtain anything required by
doctor or nurse, but it is impressed on these women that they must
not in any way undertake the nursing of the patient or be responsible
for the confinement. In October, 1931, a rule was established
that the Council would not grant a Home Help to any woman
unless she had engaged a trained midwife to attend her at the confinement,
or unless a trained maternity nurse was present with the
doctor. Previously it was found in a certain small number of cases
that the Home Help was a "handywoman" who attended cases
with a doctor, and, with the apparent approval of the doctor, conducted
in an unsatisfactory and incompetent way, all the duties of
a skilled midwife or nurse. Until the medical practitioner himself
refuses to employ these untrained women as maternity nurses, and
further, while a certain number of doctors definitely encourage
their patients to engage such women as nurses, it is extremely
difficult to convince the mothers that they are not being attended
satisfactorily. Not only do the mothers receive incompetent treatment,
but the lack of training of the newborn infants attended by
untrained women is evident to the Health Visitors, who find on
their first visit many faults in the care of the infants, in its management,
training, and feeding.
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