[Report 1948] / Medical Officer of Health, Cumberland County Council.

  • Cumberland County Council
Date:
1948
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1948] / Medical Officer of Health, Cumberland County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    61/98 (page 61)
    to bv-pass these field clinics and to send patients direct to the Cumberland Infirmary who, previous to July 1948, would have been dealt with at our county orthopaedic clinics. This has, I think, two disadvantages. The first is that patients (a) may be involved in long travelling, whicli, in the case of cripjiling conditions, may be particularly difficult, and (b) I think must add unnecessarily to the already e.xtremely busy orthopaedic clinics at the Cumberland Infirmary. .An increasing number of quite minor orthopaedic con- ditions are referred to our clinics, the actual number of rickets and flat feet refened during the year amounting to nearlv 2.10 as opposed to 130 in li>47. For the reasons given above, I think, it would be a great pity if, especially in the case of children, our County Council orthopaedic clinics ceased to be a dealing house, as they have been for so many years, for orthopaedic conditions and become merely places to which such minor conditions as rickets and flat feet were referred. The following tables show the general position. We have had to deal with the aftermath of the 1947 epidemic of infantile paralysis which, fortunately, did not involve many serious cases. The general figures for the year remain very much the same, apart from the above comment, as they have in previous years. In a few cases there has been difficulty in providing boots for the fitting of simple surgical appliances such as knock-knee irons. These boots are not in any sen.se surgical boots but merely require piercing for irons, and in some households of restricted means the provision of these boots has presented a little difficulty. Prior to July we bought these boots in necessitous cases either directly through the health department or through the children’s fund. The boots, being ordinary boots, cannot properly be requisitioned under the Ministry of Pensions arrangements and the matter seems to fall within the province of the Assistance Board. The clothing grant from the Board, however, has in some ca.ses been e.xpended on other clothing and when these boots, which form an integral part of the treatment of certain orthopaedic conditions, were required they could not be ])rovided. Xo doubt this problem, like many others, will sort it.self out. One satisfactory point which emerges from the year’s working is that more mothers seem to be willing and anxious to co-operate in the treatment of comparatively minor ortho- paedic conditions such as knock-knees and postural defects. There is less objection to the wearing of irons and a rather better tendency to attend intermediate clinies and to see that the children carry out remedial exercises.