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MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE SCHEME.
Facilities which could still be provided by the Local Authority
in West Ham under Existing Regulations.
Facilities.
1—Free Dinners for necessitous expectant mothers from sixth
month of pregnancy, and for nursing mothers.
Possible Methods of Provision of these Added Facilities.
(a) Provision of dinners at existing Maternity and Child Welfare
Centres.
Disadvantages:
(1) Meals would require to be transported from a central
kitchen, as most of the clinics have no facilities for cooking
on such a scale.
(2) Additional staff would be required to serve the meals and
to supervise.
(3) Insufficient suitable or accessible clinics to make the
scheme easily available each day for expectant mothers.
(b) Provision of dinners at the existing School Dining Centres
by arrangement with the Education Committee.
Advantages:
(1) The Centres are already used for the purpose of providing
meals for children, the food being freshly cooked and
prepared at each Centre.
(2) The Centres are accessible to all areas of the Borough.
(3) The existing staff would probably require little, if any,
addition.
(4) The menus would require only slight adjustment except
in special abnormal cases.
Remarks:
(1) Method (b) would be satisfactory and workable.
(2) The basis adopted for eligibility for free dinners might
be the Council's Home Help Scale.
(3) All women would have to be recommended by one of the
Medical Officers of the M. and C.W. Clinics through
attendance at the Clinic.
(4) This scheme is very necessary to augment the present
scheme for the provision of Dried Milk, as it is found in
many cases that the mother herself benefits very little
from the milk, which is shared amongst the children.
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