Report of the Committee of Management and Medical Director : 1947 / Papworth Village Settlement.

  • Papworth Village Settlement (Cambridge, England)
Date:
1947
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee of Management and Medical Director : 1947 / Papworth Village Settlement. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/26 (page 9)
    REPORT OF THE MEDICAL DIRECTOR I HAVE the honour to present the Annual Report for the year ended December 31st, 1947. During the whole of this year, dis¬ cussions have been in progress with the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Health with a view to finding a scheme, acceptable to these Ministries and to the Settlement, which would enable the tuberculous to benefit from the provisions of the Disabled Persons’ Employment Act (1944). The Act allows for training-grants for all regis¬ tered disabled persons fit for an eight hours’ day, and is therefore of no use to the tuberculous under rehabilita¬ tion, where such rehabilitation takes place during, and as part of treatment. It has always been the prime principle of Papworth that these should be combined to the benefit of both, whether the patient for whom they are provided decides to settle in the Village or return to his own or another outside employment. He should not, as is abundantly proved by the after¬ histories of sanatorium-treated pati¬ ents, return to an eight-hour day under normal conditions of outside industry under a period of some two years from the date at which he is, by normal sanatorium standards, considered fit for discharge from residential treat¬ ment. The scheme which we sought from the Ministries, and which will come Into operation early in 1948, recognizes this particular disability of the tuber¬ culous, and secures for every man and woman who elects to enter It the same allowances as are available for other forms of disablement, even when the patient is fit for only three hours per day in sedentary employment, learning a trade by which he can eventually earn his living and support his depen¬ dants. The scheme is to be available for present and future patients in our Hospitals, and also to those who have received treatment in other sanatoria and wish to come to Papworth for rehabilitation and continued observa¬ tion on our principles. This means they must have disease not beyond the moderately advanced stage, be fit to be up all day, and to take one hour’s walking exercise before transfer to Papworth. Their assessment will be on a basis agreed between the Sanator¬ ium Medical Officer and Tuberculosis Officer on the one hand and the Medical staff of Papworth on the other. We believe this scheme to be a distinct forward step in Social Medi¬ cine, especially as it is to be made applicable to other Village Settlements throughout the country. It should do much to remove any sense of grievance among the tuberculous who have contracted their disease through no fault of their own and who are in every sense as worthy of Government aid as the sufferers from orthopaedic disabilities. It should at the same time do much more than was possible under 266/T, because it offers continued aid for some two years to the married [9]