View report page

The work of the Chest Clinic has increased considerably over the
last five years, but the rate of increase in numbers of attendances has
tended to slacken recently. The medical staff is especially hard
pressed particularly as Dr. Brett, who formerly attended for three
sessions per week, has been obliged to devote more time to mass
radiography duties. There is still a shortage of beds for the treatment
of tuberculosis, particularly for male patients, and the position
has not improved materially over the course of the year. A good
many patients are treated in Edgware General and Hendon Isolation
Hospitals where 28 and 10 beds respectively are under the charge
of the clinic medical staff. Admissions are also arranged through
the North-West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board's waiting list
to regional chest hospitals particularly Colindale and Clare Hall
Hospitals. The shortage of beds is to some extent mitigated by the
use of domiciliary treatment.
In connection with the prevention of Tuberculosis, B.C.G.
vaccination of suitable contacts has been carried out, and surveys of
some schools have been undertaken at the request of Medical Officers
of Health. Special visits and reports on housing conditions have been
made in a number of cases where adverse living conditions made the
spread of disease likely.
The appointments system for patients attending the clinic has
been continued and is on the whole successful. Towards the end of
the year certain re-organisation which the Ambulance Service found
necessary to make had the effect of making time of arrival of ill
patients being brought to the clinic more difficult to anticipate and
consequently made the appointments system very uncertain in operation
at times.
The installation of the Odelca miniature X-ray unit at the commencement
of 1952 has enabled a full diagnostic radiological service
to be continued and has on the whole been most successful. It has
been possible to introduce a scheme for the routine X-ray of pregnant
women as part of the ante-natal care and to arrange X-ray films of
contacts where formerly much reliance had to be placed only on
screen examinations. Most of the routine work of the clinic is now
undertaken with miniature X-rays and this has led to some financial
economy.
The X-ray of patients referred by their doctors often with comparatively
trivial symptoms has led to the discovery of a number of
31