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33
Supervision of child-minders and day nurseries is a very
serious business, seriously and energetically tackled. Complaints,
rumours and even anonymous letters are investigated
immediately and although the whole process is handled tactfully
inevitably charges of 'snooping' are made. It is our
opinion that if this is indeed snooping, then it is snooping in
a good cause and we make no apology.
Despite the foregoing, it is true to say that on the whole
child-minders and day nursery proprietors take their duties
seriously. This is not only humanitarian, but it is also good
business because if they do not the parents either withdraw
patronage or the Health Department takes rapid action.
Changing
Emphasis
The future holds great promise for constructive change.
It is only in the past 20 years that the infant mortality rate
has fallen to a level whereby virtually all preventable infant
deaths are prevented and efforts are now more fully attained to
helping infants and mothers to enjoy a healthy life instead of
preventing them from becoming ill. This is evidenced by the
changing attitude of health visitors and doctors who now
spend more time studying and clarifying family and interpersonal
relationships than they do with physical defects.
Mothers are more prosperous and more sophisticated and quite
rightly want better things both materially and emotionally for
their children. They will not accept the authoritarian approach
which is still common in clinical medicine and things must be
explained to them so clearly that they themselves like action
to remedy faulty living attitudes.
It will be seen therefore that the full-time doctors and
health visitors employed in the care of mothers and young
children must be rather special doctors and nurses in that they
must be so conversant with the normal child that any deviation
from normality is instantly detected; they must also be expert
in the techniques of health education and normal and abnormal
psychology. These are skills which are acquired only after
graduation and a whole new attitude towards medicine is then
adopted. It is perhaps a tribute to their interest and dedication
to their work that we still have some, but not enough, to do all
the work that is there to be done. Efforts must be made to
attract the right sort of person to this work and pay alone,
inadequate though it is, is not the entire answer.