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Between the 1st May and the end of the year, 1563 notifications
were received from the Brompton Hospital and other hospitals in
Chelsea relating to patients (almost entirely out-patients) who were
found on examination to be suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis, but
who resided in places other than Chelsea. These 1563 notifications
were allocated to their respective sanitary districts in London, greater
London, or the provinces, as the case might be, and were sent on by
post to the Medical Officers of Health of the districts in which the
patients resided. Every week a list of these patients and the sanitary
authorities from whom the notification fees should be collected, has been
sent to the authorities of the Brompton and other hospitals notifying
cases in this way. Owing to the out-patient department of the Brompton
Hospital being situate in Chelsea—probably the largest out-patient
department for consumptive patients of any hospital in the world—a
very considerable addition to the clerical work of the Public Health
Department of this Borough has accrued. It would have been much
better if, in the first instance, all cases of pulmonary tuberculosis
attending hospitals had been made notifiable to the County Medical
Officer of Health, who would thus have been notified at first hand
instead of by weekly returns as at present, and whose staff is much
better adapted for the purposes of a Clearing House than the staff of the
Chelsea Public Health Department, which has no clerical assistance to
supplement the work of its statutory officers.
THE ANTI-TUBERCULOSIS CAMPAIGN.
In London Anti-Tuberculosis Dispensaries have already been
established by means of charitable contributions in Paddington, North
Kensington, St. Marylebone, Stepney, Bermondsey, Battersea, and
Fulham. Under the National Insurance Act it will become necessary
to decide what provision should be made for London generally to secure
the Sanatorium benefits accruing under the Act. At the present time
only 5 of the Metropolitan Boroughs have made any arrangements with
open air Sanatoria for the provision of beds for selected consumptive
cases. In no instance have more than 10 beds altogether been so
allocated to the requirements of any one Borough. No provision has,
so far, been made by any Borough, apart from the Poor-Law, for the
institutional isolation and treatment of advanced and incurable cases.