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13
MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
The expansion of the maternity and child welfare services,
following the Maternity and Child Welfare Act, 1918, was very
striking. These services, originally commenced by voluntary
associations, were taken over by the municipality by degrees,
generally at the request of the voluntary associations. Health
visiting and the provision of child welfare and ante-natal clinics
were the original services but by 1947, the last complete year
before these services were handed over to the London County
Council, the borough was providing also convalescent aid to children
and mothers, domestic help, sterilised maternity outfits, home
nursing assistance, the calling in of consultants in difficult maternity
cases and, in conjunction with the London County Council,
a mobile emergency obstetric unit and at the centres sunlight
and dental treatment and a gynaecological clinic for dealing with
diseases peculiar to women.
A comparison of first attendances with the number of births
registered shows that in 1920, 47 per cent. of the children born
in that year were taken to the welfare centres but the corresponding
figure for 1947 was 87 per cent. At the time of my first annual
report in 1920 there were five welfare centres in the borough, all
held in church halls; two of these were controlled by voluntary
societies and three by the Borough Council.
When this service was first established the public were not
used to health visiting and health visitors were not always welcome,
whilst the welfare centres were regarded mainly as being a source
of free or reduced-price milk and foods supply and as such were
avoided by mothers not in want. The position in these days is very
different for almost all mothers are pleased to take advantage of
the maternity and child welfare services and the centres are recognised
as being essential to the well-being of the community.
In 1947 there were five maternity and child welfare centres
operating, all municipal, two of which were held in buildings which
had been specially built and equipped for the purpose, complete
with equipment for dental and sunlight treatment and other ancillary
services; two in houses adapted for the purpose and one in
a mission hall, whilst of the fourteen ante-natal and post-natal
clinics held each week only two were held in church halls.
Mr. Haynes, the chief maternity and child welfare clerk, was
associated with this development, and Mr. Percival Holt, M.Inst.
C.E., M.Inst.M. and Cy.E., the former Borough Engineer and
Surveyor, made such a success of the erection and decoration of
the Richmond Road and Elsdale Street Maternity and Child Welfare
Centres that the Ministry of Health on many occasions sent foreign
visitors to see them.