[Report 1932] / Medical Officer of Health, Rotherham County Borough.

  • Rotherham (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1932
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1932] / Medical Officer of Health, Rotherham County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    94/114 (page 92)
    CHILD WELFARE CENTRES. On May 4th, 1932, a new child welfare clinic was opened at Thorpe Hesley, utilising rooms in the Council School which are used for a similar purpose by the Education Medical and Dental Officers. The same facilities are offered as are avail¬ able at the two Rotherham centres. The attendance is not large, but certainly justifies the existence of the clinic; the medical officer in attendance is the Assis¬ tant Tuberculosis Officer, Dr. Haughie. The attendance at child welfare centres will be noted as increasing ; allowing for adverse weather conditions, the attendance is high and when, as occasionally does happen, over 90 people wish to see the doctor, the giving of advise is almost reduced to absurdity. Various methods have been tried whereby some control could be worked, but nothing satisfactory has so far been evolved. Assuming 2J hours for each session, 50 cases could be allowed 3 minutes each providing no hind¬ rance arises ; this is a high figure and is in excess of what is allowed for efficient work. Actually the time of the session has been over four hours on occasion, and this is distinctly unfair to the people waiting for consultation as it means that they have to wait at least 2 hours, in all probability with a child who is not well. One feels that were times better these figures would decrease and the family doctor would be consulted instead of the clinics-at any rate oftener than now occurs. The following table gives the figures relating to the centres :— Ferham Cr an worth Thorpe House. Road. Hesley * Total. Number of sessions held New cases enrolled during the year : 99 100 17 216 Under 1 year 443 501 24 968 Over 1 year 87 134 22 243 Cases brought forward from previous years and enrolled during the year : Under 1 year 236 233 7 476 Over 1 year 613 672 4 1289 Total number of children attending during the year : Under 1 year 679 734 31 1444 Over 1 year 700 806 26 1532 Total attendances made : Under 1 year 5047 5566 147 10760 Over 1 year 3787 5345 130 9262 Average attendance per session 90 109 16 — Average number of medical consultations per session 50 55 15 — * From May 4th, 1932. The total number of children registered at the child welfare centres at the end of the year was 4,646, comprising 796 under 1 year and 3,850 from 1 to 5 years of age. As the estimated pre-school population of Rotherham is 6,000 the above figure indicates that 77 per cent, of the total pre-school population have been enrolled at the centres.