Second annual report on the Workhouse Hospitals / Charles Cooke, Medical Officer to the Workhouse.

  • Cooke, Charles
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Second annual report on the Workhouse Hospitals / Charles Cooke, Medical Officer to the Workhouse. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of cases of any given disease may now be easily ascertained. It will be seen that whilst as in all Infirmaries the clement of in¬ curable disease figures largely, it is quite a mistake to suppose that the incurable and the aged form the bulk of the sick for a still larger number of ordinary curable cases pass through the wards in the course of the year, including such serious diseases as Pneumonia of which we have had 32 cases, Acute Bronchitis 20 cases. Rheumatic Fever 7 oases. Influenza and Bronchial Catarrh 70 cases. We are better provided for the nursing of such cases as these than formerly but the hospitals are still understaffed. The proportion of nurses to patients seems to be in general hospitals 1 to 10 or 15; in the leading Infirmaries about 1 to 14 or 15; - in smaller well equipped In firmaries 1 to 18 or 20 while i with us it is about 1 to 40. The large and increasing number of cases of venereal disease is striking; no fewer than 140 persons suffering from them have been treated during the year or nearly 14 per cent of the total, and there can be no doubt that many of the diseases classified under other heads are directly or indirectly attributable to this cause ' so that it may be confidently stated that from 20 to 25 per cent . [ of the disease in the Infirmary is of this character. It is, of course, a matter of great importance that the treatment of these /] cases should be thorough and one great difficulty is the absence of jlegal authority to detain them; persons in an infectj ous state from scarlet-fever or Small-Pox can be dealt with under the Infectious Diseases Act and some power is sadly needed to enablq Boards of