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Public Health Department,
Town Hall,
Bethnal Green, E.2.
4th September, 1941.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In accordance with the suggestion of the Ministry of
Health, I am furnishing a brief interim report on the health
of the Borough and the work of the Public Health Department
during 1940, leaving a fuller account of these matters until
after the war.
VITAL STATISTICS.
Following the comparatively satisfactory general mortality
figure for 1959, the death rate for 1940 was very high, rising
from 11.5 per thousand population to 20.1 per thousand. On the
other hand, the infant death rate was maintained at its
previous low level, and was 49.5 per 1,000 births, actually the
lowest on record in the Borough. The reasons for this
contrast seem to be bound up with the facts that the majority
of the babies concerned, although belonging to Bethnal Green,
were mostly born in country districts where a large number of
them remained, while the adult civilian population, raised in
age level by the enlistment of large numbers of young men in
the armed forces, was subjected to intensive air raids, as well
as other unfavourable circumstances, e.g., severe winter.
It is of specially tragic interest to report that 145 of these
deaths were due to air raid injuries, 72 males and 73 females,
including 12 children under 15 and 25 persons over 65.
The birth rate rose from 12.8 to 15.1 per 1,000 population.
There were no maternal deaths. The Registrar-General's
estimate of the civilian population for the year was 66,620,
and the birth and death rates have been calculated on this
basis.
MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
Attendances at the Welfare Centra have been affected by
the flow and ebb of evacuation, which has in turn been
profoundly influenced by the frequency or apparent suspension
of air raids. Three of the health visitors continue to act as
nurses in charge of First Aid Posts or Mobile Units, while the
places of two who retired during the year were not filled.
Notwithstanding these adverse circumstances, the remaining
health visitors paid 1,662 visits and 21,694 revisits during
the year, which compares favourably pro rata to staff with
pre-war figures. Special attention has been paid to the
visiting of toddlers. The attendances of mothers at the
Maternity Clinic has also shown less than the reduction which
might reasonably have been expected, being 813, as compared
with 965 in 1938, but there is a great falling off in the
post-natal attendances. It is in the attendsjnces of the
children at the Welfare Centres that the effect of the war is
most obvious, there being only 9,296 as compared with the
pre-war level of 19,506. The fall in the children's
consultations with a doctor shows this even more strikingly,