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The year also saw the opening, in connection with
Knox Road Special School, of the Romford Road Home
for 18 educationally subnormal boys who were unable to
remain at their own homes on account of behaviour or other
difficulties. One other notable event was the visit of 41
West Ham children to Switzerland, which is described on
page 65.
On the other hand, difficulties have to be recorded
arising from the growing shortage of health visitors, and
towards the end of the year the Council adopted a scheme
for the assisted training of health visitors in return for a
minimum length of service, and took the initiative in
discussions which it is hoped will lead to the establishment
of an additional training course to meet the needs of the
South West Essex area. The School Dental Service also
had its share of difficulties during the year owing to shortage
of Dental Officers, and the planned development of this
service perforce remained in abeyance.
By virtue of the National Health Service Act 1946, this
is the last full year in which the hospitals will be
administered by the Council. Though working continually
in the shadow of the sentence passed by Parliament, the
Health Committee did not allow themselves to be deterred
from developing the hospital services where needed. Indeed,
on page 46 will be found an account of the much needed
increases in medical staff for Whipps Cross Hospital which
had been seriously delayed by war time conditions: at the
same time many valuable links were forged with the public
health clinic services, as described in the body of the report,
which it is hoped will retain a measure of the hospital's
interest in the Borough after the separation has taken place.
At the same hospital the catering service was re-organised
and developed and plans were drawn up for accommodating
extensions of the X-Ray Department and other ancillary
services; while at Forest Gate Hospital extensive work was
carried out on a new maternity unit. Moreover future
alignments were anticipated by making empty wards at
the Council's Plaistow Fever Hospital available for Queen
Mary's Hospital, a marriage of the municipal and the
voluntary, at one time considered incompatible, which
worked harmoniously to the public good. At this same
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