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Institutes and Baby Clinics E ARE very prond of our cover pic- Wture, and partly because We believe the promotion of Child Health Clinics is one of the finest pieces of work the Institutes are doing. Happily this work is going on in a great many counties. Elora, the Institute represented on the cover, is in Wellington county and here is what the Health Educator of the county health unit, Mr. D. A, Geeltie. has to say about the Women’s Institutes' part in the project: “We feel that the Institutes sponsoring the Child Health Centres are an integral part of the Child Health Centre team. They’re pro~ riding the physical facilities for conducting the clinic, which while important, are per- haps only secondary to their actual services within the clinic itself, They act as a very effective liaison group between the Health Unit staff and the people Within the commun- ity. They live in the community and know the people who have need of the services and are in a very good position to interpret the seiu vices that are offered, where. when, how and so on. The ladies who act as volunteers in the clinic are called upon to do several jobs. perhaps the most important of which is to greet the mothers with their babies when they arrive at the clinic. There is nothing which helps more to set a mother at ease and to accept the teaching and services offered in the light in which they are offered than being greeted by someone from their own commun- ity and one they know. The volunteers are responsible for the weighing of the infants and pre-schoolers, recording the weight change on the child's chart, helping the mother with clothing and several other jobs. I mention this job of helping the mothers with children's clothing specifically because of the fact that mothers in this area often come to the clinic with two or three pro- schoolers and perhaps an infant as well. The volunteers also act as a guide in the Child Health Centre, conducting the mother from public health nurse to the dentist, to the Physician and so on. “In addition to helping us at the Child Health Centres a good many of these organ~ izations also provided the very nece55ary vol~ unteers in the past three years for our special polio vaccinating clinics.” There are thirteen Child Health Centres in Wellington county, assisted by various organ~ izations, but nine of the thirteen arc spon- SUMMER 1958 Al the monthly baby clinic sponsored by Turn Women‘s lrlslllulel Dr. Reginald Allen, of Bruce County Health Unit gives Salk polio shots to a brother and sister with their mother close by. Standing is Mrs. Hurry McDougold. a volunteer worker at the clinic sinre it was started under her presidency oi the Institute six years ago. *l'il'l'lt min-va [Ht-in Hrurml .H‘uu-Tiim'a sured by Women's Instltutes: Clill'orcl, IVlo int Forest Palmerston. Horrlston. Moorclicld. Drayton. Arthur. Fergus. liloru. Guelph. lint-li- wood. Erin and Puslincli. The Institute prw vides a place for the t'llllil', u<uully in the town hall or :1 Sunday School Hall; in many cases they provide such equipment, as wcinlr ing scales and tulilcs; and of course they proe ride the necessaryâ€"or at least very lu'lpl'tlli volunteer workers. Somclhing ul‘ lhc scope of the whole service is evident in the record that last year the zittcnduncc at all tlic ccntrcs in the county was 5087, an Increase of 87 pcr- cent over the lllfih‘ attendance. From the ill- londance for the first few montlh of 1958 it appears that there will hc in further increase this your. Six years ago, Tara W-imcn's institute, under the leadership ol‘ the Prrwirlcnt. Mrs. Harry McDouguld am! the Sm:i'clar_r~'l‘rc urer. Mrs. Chester Mcrrinn started a local baby clinic in co-opcrzilinn with Bl‘tlc‘u County Health Unit. Ever since. this clinic has liccn a special interest of Mrs. Mr-Dounalrl. and cvcry month she and two othcr Institute mcrnlicrs are on hand to Wul(.'0n‘l(.‘ the mothers. kccp the children happy, attend to weighing the babies. checking the cards and assisting’ the doctor and the nurse in various ways. Mrs. Mcâ€" Dougald reports that the clinic is very well attended. One morining thcy had 35 babies just for inoculations against the childhood diseases. Around 180 children went through the polio clinic. 5. 29