[Report 1959] / Medical Officer of Health, Martley R.D.C.
- Martley (England). Rural District Council.
- Date:
- 1959
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: [Report 1959] / Medical Officer of Health, Martley R.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.
3/40 page 1
![AmJAL RBK)RT 0? IvBDICAL OFFICLP. OF IIS/\LTII FOR THS YEAR 1959 Public Herlth Department, 1, The Tything, Y/orcester, August, 19^0. To the Chairman and Members of the Martley Public HeaJ.th Committee, Mr. Chairman, La.dies and Gentlemen, I have the honvour to present my Annual Deport on the health of the Rural District for the year ended 3^ st December, '1959. Consideration of the Vital Statistics shovm in Section A indicates that the health of the populativon in the Disti’ict remains very satisfactory. The death rate from all causes remains v/ell belov/ the National Average. The only disturbing figure this year is the number of stillbirths (9) v;hich gives a high Stillbirth Rate and, together v;ith the deaths in the first week of life, gives an exceptionally high Perinatal Mortality Rate. This may well be related to the consistently high Infant Mortality Rate for the District over the previous ten years. As I submitted a report to the Council on this subject last November, I have made a precis of the results, which au'e printed on pages A and 3» This does not real].y indicate a definite relationship betv/een the high Infant Mortality Rate aud substandard housing conditions (although there are still a large number to be dealt with under the Slum. Clearance Programme); it does, however, point clearly to the undesirability of having expectant mothers and young infants living in temporary dwellings such as caravans aid hop-pickers barracks. A successful attempt ivas made to remove the occupants of one block of hop-picking accommodation which had been the source of trouble for two years by the ser\'’ice of Demolition Orders and it is hoped that all squatters will be dealt with in a simular manner. Unauthorised caravans also present difficulties as a fair number of travellers enter the District looking for seasonal agricultural work. It is to be hoped that the new legislation will effectively deal with this problem. A summary of the Slum Cleax-ance Programme during the five years from January 1955 “ I96O is shoivn on page 13 . Twenty one houses have been demolished and twenty three closed, but a number of the latter are still occupied owing to the shortage of new dwellings. It is encouraging to note that 14 old peoples bungalov/s are being erected and more are being considered, but this will not materially affect the position as the target was 220 demolitions over a period of ten years. It will be observed from the table on page 15 that very fev/ cases of Infectious Disease occurred during the year with the exception of Measles. 358 cases of this disease v/ere notified, ■'Miich was in line with the biennial incidence of the disease throughout the Country but considerably more than usual. Fortunately there were no deaths. I have for the fii-st time included fuD.l details of the Diphtheria immunisation state of the child population (page8)„ This shows that the Immunity Index is 4O/0 which is far too Ioy/ (over 6O/0 being essential to guard against an outbreak of the disease). It will be observed that many children v;ere immunised more than five years ago and are not included in the calculations. For this reason I strongly recommend a booster dose at 10 years old in addition to the usual doses in infancy and at 5 years.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29792952_0003.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
