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60
HEALTH VISITING
In recent years the Council has employed fourteen Health
Visitors for maternity and child welfare work, each of whom has
an allotted district for visiting purposes. The Health Visitors
spend approximately two-thirds of their time upon home visiting
and the remainder in attendance at maternity and child welfare
centres. The considerable increase in the number of sessions to be
held at the new centres has, however, ncessitated an augmentation
of the Health Visiting staff and four additional Visitors have been
appointed and commenced work in 1937.
Two of the three voluntary associations providing in the
Borough infant welfare centres also employ Health Visitors, who
carry out the health visiting work in the areas served by those
centres.
Visits are paid as required to all expectant mothers of whom
knowledge is received through midwives, Ante-Natal Clinics or
other means. There is a scheme of co-operation between the
Borough Council and the London County Council under which
mothers who attend at the Ante-Natal Clinics established at
Hackney Hospital and Bethnal Green Hospital are notified to the
Public Health Department in order that the Borough Council's
Health Visitors might visit the homes. Women who lapse in their
attendance at the Clinics are also notified to the Public Health
Department for the further attention of the Health Visitors.
The Health Visitors also visit the homes of all infants notified
under Sec. 255 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1936 (notification
of births). The first visit is paid as soon as possible
after the infant reaches the age of fourteen days. Three further
routine visits are paid during the first year of life, and four
visits are paid in each subsequent year until the child reaches
the age of five years. Additional visits are paid as required to
infants and children suffering from ophthalmia neonatorum,
measles, whooping cough, etc. It may be said, therefore, that the
Borough is adequately served as regards health visiting.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
has greatly assisted the maternity and child welfare work of the
Council by investigating cases of child neglect brought to its notice.
The Society's local inspector calls at the Town Hall once a
week for information of any such cases found by the Health
Visitors and through his efforts and authority the conditions under
which some children were living have been greatly improved.