[Report 1924] / Medical Officer of Health, Eastbourne County Borough.

  • Eastbourne (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1924
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1924] / Medical Officer of Health, Eastbourne County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    87/118 (page 76)
    MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE. The Statutory Committee is a Sub-Committee of the Sanitary and Public Health Committee, and is composed of six members of that Committee, another Alderman of the Council, and two co-opted ladies. Councillor Miss Hudson is in the Chair of this Committee. The Centre at which the work is co-ordinated is at the Town Hall. [a] A Mothers' and Infants’ Clinic is held at the Town Hall at 2 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays. Dr. E. H. B. Coghill is the medical attendant of the Clinic, and Miss R. Clark the Superintendent Nurse. The work of the Clinic includes advice to mothers, and attention to minor ailments of infants and children under school age for which ordinary medical attention is rarely, if ever, obtained. The work is mainly preventive, and infraction of the ' work of medical practitioners is avoided. Cases are sometimes referred to them, and vice versa. Short demonstrations in such matters as washing and dressing infants are given. Eight refreshments are provided by some ladies kindly interested in the Clinic. The infants are regularly weighed, and advice is given on matters concerning both infants and mothers. The attendances at the Clinic in 1924 were 5,248 of 862 children, 505 under two years of age, and 357 aged three and four years ; the attendances in the previous year were 4,111 ; 72 mothers attended for advice on 101 occasions. The staff at the Clinic included the Super- intendent Nurse, Miss R. Clark, and Nurses Simmonds, Forward and Curtis. These Nurses were also engaged in home visiting. {h) Home Visiting.—The Borough is divided for this purpose into three districts, each having its own Nurse Visitor. The visits paid numbered 9,602,