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34
I have ascertained that out of this total, 1,947 toddlers are in
attendance at the Elementary Schools or at the Nursery School, and
146 are in attendance at Day Nurseries in the Borough. It will thus be
seen that 7,607 toddlers remain at home and require to be visited regularly
by the visiting staff.
The arrangements which the Council has already made may be
described under the following headings:—
A. Infant Welfare Centres.
B. Medical Staff and Supervision.
C. Health Visiting Staff and Home Visiting.
D. Minor Ailment Treatment.
E. Hospital Treatment.
F. Home Nursing.
G. Schick Clinic.
H. Convalescent Homes.
I. Day Nurseries.
J. Extra Nourishment.
Infant Welfare Centres.
There are 14 Welfare Centres in the Borough; 8 municipal and
4 voluntary, and 2 partly municipal and partly voluntary. Each centre
has its own district and health visiting staff, and each is attended by a
Medical Officer. In all, 23 sessions are held during the week, and mothers
are encouraged to bring both infants and toddlers.
In addition to this, one of the voluntary centres hold a special
toddlers' session every three months; this is now to be held monthly
owing to the large attendance.
The records show that 83 per cent. of the births occurring in the
Borough each year attend one or other of the Welfare Centres, but after
the first year there is certainly a falling off in the attendances of toddlers.
Although this latter group made 27,624 attendances during the year 1935,
and 8,819 were seen and examined by the Doctors, there is no doubt
that more encouragement is required to bring this group of children into
the centres more frequently, and when the Council has completed building
the six new Maternity and Child Welfare Centres which they have under
consideration, additional facilities for dealing with the toddlers' class
can better be offered than at the present time. Moreover, it is very
desirable to increase the number of sessions at the various centres in
order to limit the attendance, as the present sessions are grossly overcrowded
and neither Nurses nor Doctors are able to deal efficiently with
the work.