[Report 1925] / Medical Officer of Health, Eccles Borough.

  • Eccles (Greater Manchester, England). Borough Council.
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1925] / Medical Officer of Health, Eccles Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    68/74 (page 66)
    the period between the first birthday and the child’s admission to school. The home visiting of children^ is closely linked up with the work of the Infant Welfare Centre. Each nurse attends the Centre one afternoon each week and so far as possible the mothers resid- ing in her area are asked to attend on that afternoon. The nurse is thus able to see a large number of children from her area, satisfy herself that they are making progress and that visits to the home are unnecessary. In these cases the attendances at the Centre thus supplement the visits to the homes. The register of attendances at the Infant Welfare Centre is examined each week and a list of the names of mothers, who have been absent from the Centre for a period of three or four weeks is given to the niirse for the dis- trict in which they reside, so that the children may be followed up at home and their progress and the reason for their absence ascer- tained. Very often early information concerning the illness of a baby is given to the nurses bjf neighbours when they are paying other visits in the street. By these means the children in the Borough are kept under very close supervision and it is very excep- tional for a young child to be ill for more than two or three days without the Health Visitors becoming aware of the fact and paying a visit to give such assistance as they can. During the past year 755 primary visits were made to babies in the Borough, 8,937 to children under one year and 4,810 to children aged 1-5 years, making a total of 14,502 routine visits in addition to 1,723 special visits made to children siiffering from 0])hthalmia, Pneumonia, Bronchitis, Measles, Whooping Cough and Chicken Pox. During the same period ,10,215 attendances at the Infant Welfare Centre were made by children i;nder one year of age and 4,254 by children aged 1-5 years. SUPERVISION OF CHILDREN. Home Visits Attendance at Total Age ('ent re Number Average Number A verage Number Average of Visits per cliilcl of Visits per child of Visits per child 0-1} Primary visits Subsequent,, 765 8937 1.0 11.8 } 10215 13.5 19907 26.4 1—2 2537 3.4 2454 3.2 4991 6.6 2-3 1203 1.6 904 1.2 2107 2.8 3—4 734 1.0 581 0.8 1315 1.7 4-.5 .336 0.4 315 0.4 651 0.9 Total 14502 19.3 14469 19.1 28971 38.4 From the above table it will be seen that an average of 12.8 rou- tine visits are paid to each child under one year of age, while 13.5 attendances are made at the Infant Welfare Centre. Thiis each