[Report 1949] / Medical Officer of Health, Dudley County Borough.

  • Dudley (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1949
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1949] / Medical Officer of Health, Dudley County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    8/76 (page 6)
    that there are other Departments besides his own in Local iVuthority, and that health, although an ever-pressing priority, must at times give place to other urgent projects. In these days of restrictions, financial and otherwise, delay is common, and often exasperating, as you know only too well, but w^e are pro- gressing as fast as we may and in some respects, faster than wc hoped. I will comment briefly n(3w on the more important aspects ol the work during the year. Fuller details are provided later in the report. Jnfant JVIortality. .As I forecast in my las4 Annual Report, the considerable improvement shown in 1948 has not l^een maintained and the infant death rate for the year shows a total of 5:1 infant deaths (47.32 per 1,000 related live births) as compared wath the figure for 1948—37 (33.(54) and the figure for England and Wales of 32 perx 1,000 related live births. The Registrar General reports that this is the lowest figure ever recorded in this country. The corres- IDonding- rate for the County Boroughs and Great Towms including London is 37. It must, however, be noted that the infant deatli rate in respect of any communit}^ may show fluctuations not reflected in the corresponding rate for the country as a whole, and this is par- ticular! v the cas(^ in a town of the size of Dudley, it is the tendency of the average rale over a period which is important as an indica- tion of the progress made. In my last report I showed the remark- able progress made in Dudley in a graph indicating the declining infant death rate in Dudley in five year periods since 189G. It is worth noting also that the infant death rate for 1947 was 50.72 ])er 1,000 live births and I venture to forecast tliat 1iie rate for 1950 will be below' that for this year. v' Die infant death rate for the year does not, therefore, call for undue despondency, but it is a constant reminder of the untiring efforts required of all those whose w'ork involves the care of infant life. Diere is no more vital job in the community and I he rewards of success are self evident. It would, of course, have been particularly satisfying to have repeated last year’s record figure and what has been done once can be done again. As I said last year, this must be our aim for the future. A detailed report on the infant deaths during the year will lie found later in the report. Diphtheria. Die campaign against Diphtheria can rightly be described as one of the outstanding successes of preventive medicine and it gives me particular satisfaction to be able to report that this success has been repeated in Dudley every year since immunisa-. tion was lirst started. In 1947 the number of confirmed cases in the town had fallen to 20, and last year I was able tO' report that this figure had been reduced by almost one-third to 14. In 1949 this fig'ure has once again been reduced, this time by more than one-half to a total of 6 confirmed cases. A/Vhen one can also report that there has again been no death from the disease during the year it is not going too far to say that Diphtheria at the present time has almost been wiped out in Dudley. It can be