[Report 1945] / Medical Officer of Health, Salford County Borough.

  • Salford (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1945
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1945] / Medical Officer of Health, Salford County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic. Dr. Florence Cavanagh reports :— “ The Salford Education Committee’s Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic has, of course, been established for some years, but this report only dates back to September, 1944, when I was appointed to take charge of it. It was with con¬ siderable interest that I began this work, and now after many months I realise that we are only touching the fringe of the problem. “ So much loss of efficiency (and happiness) in adult life is caused by ear disease and chronic nasal catarrh, that it behoves us to treat diligently the early manifestations of these conditions in childhood. The two most important of these are the detection of early catarrhal deafness and the detection of the ‘ running ear ’ at its onset. A few weeks of assiduous care in the early stages of these conditions will cure the majority of cases, and I have personally made it my policy to see such cases every week for a few visits and then fortnightly. In these days of difficulties for housewives I have occasionally found a mother who did not wish to attend as often as this. However, it has nearly always been possible to win her co-operation when it has been pointed out to her that in a few weeks we could clear up the trouble completely, whereas, if she attended spasmodically at the start, it would be necessary to have attention at intervals for the rest of the child’s life. “ We have also at the Clinic begun to distribute drops for use in the nose and ears ; this has made a great difference to the parents’ response, since previously we had either to ask them to attend Hospital (which necessitated more hours away from work for the mother), or to suggest that they obtained the treatment through their General Practitioner or the Chemist (and many could not afford this). A further result of this dispensing of medicaments has been that children have had more hours at school. Previously a child with chronic discharge from the ear would attend daily at the Clinic for many months, and even a year or two, and this obviously interfered with his school progress. “ In the Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic, as in many other branches of medicine, we are handicapped by lack of staff. We want more Nurses so that every case can have expert dressings. We want more trained personnel for the individual testing of children’s hearing, more Speech Therapists to teach children how to overcome their speech defects, more Physiotherapists to run classes for breathing exercises and to give artificial sunlight. Unfortunately, at present any child who requires such services must have his name added to a waiting list, and it may be a few weeks before remedial treatment can be started. I should like it to be possible for every child in Salford to have a course of artificial sunlight each winter. I should like to see every child who requires an operation for removal of tonsils and adenoids adqiitted to Hospital within a few weeks. I wish that every child who is found to be severely deafened could be admitted to the School for Deaf Children in the following term, but none of