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59
HEALTH VISITING
The Council's staff of Health Visitors was increased from
eighteen to twenty in consequence of the taking over of the Eton
Mission Maternity and Child Welfare Centre, to which reference
has already been made in this Report. The Health Visitors spend
slightly less than two-thirds of their time upon home visiting
and the remainder in attendance at maternity and child welfare
centres.
One of the two voluntary associations providing in the
Borough infant welfare centres also employs Health Visitors, who
carry out the health visiting work in the area served by that
centre.
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 the Ante-Natal Clinics established at the
County Council's Hospitals are notified to the Public Health
Department in order that the Borough Council's Health Visitors
may 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.