[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.

    71/98 (page 71)
    Perhaps a word on the hospitalisation of infectious diseases would be appropriate. A few years ago there were If infectious diseases hospitals in the county, with 212 beds, and we had also, by arrangement, part user of the Carlisle Infectious Diseases Hospital at Crozier Lodge. A number of these hospitals were really derelict or inadecpiate and have properly been closed, and today the vSpecial Area Committee control two isolation hospitals in West Cumberland (Eller- beck and Galemire) and three in East Cumberland (the Carlisle I. D. hospital at Crozier Lodge, and the Longtown and Penrith Isolation Hospitals). So far as the west is concerned, important improvements are planned at Galemire Hospital, and as regards Ellerbeck, this ho.spital is, on account of unsuitable construction and certain defects, unsatisfactory, and I do not imagine that its life as an 1.1). hospital will be prolonged. The infectious diseases hospital at Crozier Lodge is now partly used for a number of other purposes such as a streptomycin unit for the treatment of tuberculosis. These various changes have greatly reduced the number of infectious diseases beds on paper, but steps are under consideration which, by providing additional cubicles, will greatly improve the quality and user of the beds which remain. The whole matter, of course, is one entirely for the Special Area Com- mittee who have given close attention to the problems involved. INSPECTION AND SUPERVISION OF FOOD. Foods other than Milk. The report of the County Analyst is not included as this has already been circulatecl to the County Council. The widespread development of canteen feeding in a.ssociation with schools, industrial concerns etc., has un- doubtedly increased the risk of epidemics of food j)oisoning due to the possibility of the dissemination of infections through the preparation or distribution of food by persons suffering from carrier or other infectious conditions, or due to a dis- regard of the elements of personal hygiene. Anyone may see in the daily press from time to time, re])orts of such outbreaks of food poisoning. During the year under review, no such outbreak of any significance occurred in Cumberland, :dthongh one or two minor outbreaks occurred. During the summer of I94!t, a one-day cour.se of lectures and demonstrations was held at the Central Kitchen, W'igton, in which Dr. Faulds and members of the staff of the Count}^ Council, Carlisle City Council, and the Wigton Rural District