INFANT LIFE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXII, Issue 46, 23 August 1911, Page 3

INFANT LIFE.

■■■"■■ " • CHILDREN IN FOSTER HOMES. GOOD REPORTS. The number of infants dealt with directly by the Education Department during last year in connection with licensed foster homes was 1183, aad there were 630 on the books at the end of the year. There were, ift addition, 422 in exempted institutions under the depa-rt-ment's inspection, making a total of 1102. Nothing has occurred during the year, reports ths Secretary for Education, to shake the department's confidence in the boa.rding-out system, or to reflect upon tho body of excellent women in whose charge the children «ha.ye been placed. One effect of the difficulty of recovering moneys expended under the Act has appeared i& respect of medical attendance on the infants. Theoretically parent* are responsible for medical attendance, but th© services of filed fcal men have often to be obtained without reference to the parents, or even in opposition to them, if they did not wish to incur the expense, aftd the medical fees must then be paid either by the foster parents, who cannot affoTd tn«n, or by th© department, which has not been provided with the means of recovering the expenditure. After many attempts at adjusting the difficulty it was decided that all other considerations must give way to the necessity tot proper medical attendance being available when required, and arrangements have accordingly beeft^ade \vith a sufficient number of medical practitioners to attend, on beha-lf of the department, all oases that shall be regularly introduced to them. The provisions- of the Destitute Persons Act will be made use of to recover from the parents what is spent in this way. The number of deaths in foster homes was at the rate of 2.19 per cent., only slightly above the normal "death fate of the Dominion, "ahd the result, therefore," sayc the Secretary for Education, "reflects great credit on the district agents, their assistants, the local visitors, and the fester-parents."