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19
(7) Maternity and Child Welfare.
The two Welfare Centres, in Rochester Road and Stanley Road,
are open on Thursday in each week. Dr. Sloan Chesser holds a clinic
at each meeting at the former Centre, and Dr. Gale at alternate
meetings at the latter. Facilities are given for the examination of
ante-natal cases before the regular meeting at each visit of the
medical officers. Children attending the Centres are required to be
seen by the medical officer at least once a month.
During the year there were 2,402 attendances of children at 47
meetings at the Rochester Road Centre, and 906 at 48 meetings at
the Stanley Road Centre. The attendance at the ante-natal clinics is
poor, and, although the County Medical Officer of Health called a
meeting of mid-wives at my request in the preceding year, at which
the arrangements were explained, and the Superintendent of Midwives
urged them to advise their patients to present themselves at the
clinics, the total number of attendances in 1925 was only.31.
The Health Visitor paid 195 first visits and 1,602 total visits to
infants under one year of age, and 2,000 visits to children between
the ages of one and five years during the year.
The District Council pay £10 annually to the Committee of the
Memorial Hospital for special treatment of children attending the
Centres, and two children were admitted for operation during the year.
They also made an agreement towards the end of 1925 with the
Committee for the admission of maternity cases which are expected
to present difficulty, or from unsuitable homes, and one case was
admitted.
There was one death in 1925 in connection with parturition,
attributed to shock following labour, complicated by retention of the
placenta, in a patient suffering from marked aneemia. There were
five other maternal deaths, due to causes other than sepsis, in the five
years; three of them occurred in hospitals after Caesarian section,
undertaken in two instances on account of placenta praevia; one was
due to phlebitis following labour, and the fifth to hydramnios.
Milk is supplied free in necessitous cases; a special form signed
by the applicant is considered by the Maternity and Infant Welfare
'Committee after investigation of the circumstances by the Health
Visitor. During the year 56 grants were made, usually amounting to
one pint daily for a month. Various special foods are provided at
the Centres, and are sold at a low price, but sufficient to cover the
cost to the Council; in exceptional cases they are issued free or at a
reduced price, on the certificate of the medical officer.
In the case of mothers requiring dental treatment, the District
Council obtain an estimate from a dentist and defray the expense,
which is recovered from the patient by a series of small payments.