[Report 1939] / Medical Officer of Health, Cumberland County Council.

  • Cumberland (England). County Council.
Date:
1939
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1939] / Medical Officer of Health, Cumberland County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/72 (page 10)
    VITAL STATISTICS. The vital statistics for the year, vvhicli are dealt with later in this report, call for no special comment, except in one particular—the maternal mortality rate. We struck a bad year in maternal mortality. The total deaths amounted to twenty-two, nearly double the deaths for 1938, and nearl}- our highest figure for ten years. WAR. The outlneak of war, with its interruption of peace-time routine, inevitably brought in its train many jiroblems affecting health services in general. A typical example of a kind which would probably surprise those not immediately concerned in the matter was the removal by pre-arranged plan on the outbreak of war, from the Cumberland Inlirmary to a place of safety for a period, of the valuable stock of radium held at that Institution for the treatment of cancer. So far as our County Health Services were concerned, the normal working was inevitabl}'^ interrupted for a brief period. These services were, however, quickly resumed in full, and have, up to the end of 1940, been carried on without curtailment. In fact, instead of curtailment there has been substantial expansion owing to the extensive official and unofficial evacuation which has taken place to this—^u]) to the present— quiet area of England, and to the influx of members of the three Services with the families of a proportion of tliese, and also to the influx of persons connected with the various Government and industrial undertakings which have developed or are developing under war-time conditions, and to a not inconsiderable number of natives of Cumberland returning to their native heath under war-time conditions. These problems of evacuation have been difficult in at least two particulars, both of an emergency nature. I'hese particulars were the evacuation to Cumberland on the out- break of war of some lU,()(K) school children from another area, and of some hundreds of expectant mothers, in\ol\ing the establishment of an emergency maternity hospital at Gilsiand, on forty-eight hours’ notice. Certain aspects of these two matters are dealt with later. War-time conditions, too, ha\’e made the maintenance of the Services more difficult in many ways. There have been transport difliculties owing to restricted public services.