[Report 1921] / Medical Officer of Health, Salop / Shropshire County Council.

  • Shropshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1921
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1921] / Medical Officer of Health, Salop / Shropshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    37/52 (page 25)
    Position of Scheme.—A full description of the scheme was given in the Annual Report for iqi8. Since then a dispensary has been opened at Wellington ; arrangements have been made for the examination of patients, suspects and contacts once a month at Whitchurch and Ludlow Centres. Similar arrangements are made from time to time at other centres, e.g., Bridgnorth and Ironbridge. In this manner the Tuberculosis Officers are able to examine patients and par¬ ticularly the referred school children in a much more efficient and expeditious manner. The following quotation from my last report deals with another important defect in our present arrangements ;— “ It is allowed on every hand that one of the principal difficulties of dealing with consump¬ tive persons is that on discharge from the Sanatorium they cannot under existing circumstances be prevented from going back to their previous unsatisfactory housing and other conditions. The provision of farm colonies and other similar provision will only deal with a fraction of the cases. Nor is there any likelihood that phthisical persons will benefit by the municipal housing schemes, unless there is legislation in their favour. The selective action of the housing authorities will frequently be e.xercised in excluding these families. There can be no doubt, however, that the best and cheapest way of dealing with such families is to provide a healthy dwelling with a garden sufficient for the use of a shelter. The Government is bearing most of the financial loss on the housing scheme, and the Government should see that the schemes are a means of removing phthisis families from slum houses, thus both diminishing the risk of the spread of infection and giving the discharged sanatorium patient the po.ssibility of continuing a sanatorium life. Sanitary Authorities should also bear in mind that they are responsible for the satisfactory housing of consumptive persons.” All the Sanitary Authorities have been circularised and many of them have replied that they will do what is possible to carry out the views stated above. On this point Dr. Watkin says :— “ I communicated with the Medical Officer of Health for the Borough of Shrewsbury, with regard to allocating one of the new Corporation Houses to a family living in an in¬ sanitary and overcrowded house, one member of which was suffering from consumption. The Medical Officer of Health was successful in obtaining one of the new houses for this family. The difficulty in many of these cases, however, is that the family are unable to pay such high rents.” A grant from the Sanitary Authority of a few shillings a week to enable a phthisical family to pay a higher rent for a suitable house would probably be one of the most economical and effective way of spending money in the prevention of phthisis. Analysis of the home conditions shows that of the patients visited for the first time in 1921 • 109 had separate bedrooms. 43 shared bedrooms but had a separate bed. 85 shared beds. When one considers the smallness, bad ventilation and bad construction of many of these I bedrooms, it is obvious that the chances of the spread of the disease are great. Work under the Scheme.—A full description of the work of the Tuberculosis Officers and Health I Visitors a])peared in the report for 1918. In addition to the work there set out, each of the ■ tuberculosis Officers now attends at the Pensions Board for one half-day per week, and one of the ■ tuberculosis Officers (Dr. Elliott) has superintendent duties in connection with the Shirlctt tbanatorium and the Frees Heath Hospital for advanced cases of consumption.