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Seven individuals, two adults, one school child and four children under 5 years of age have
been re-Schicked after a second course of injections. All gave a negative result. It is interesting
to note that in all these seven cases a Schick negative result was obtained 9 months after the second
course of immunising injections.
Reaction after Immunising Injections.
Only in three cases since the Health Centre commenced has any reaction to the Immunising
Injections been reported:—
(1) A School child suffered from slight stiffness of the arm.
(2) A child under 5 was reported rather fretful the day after the first injection.
(3) A child under 5 had a feverish cold a few days after the first injection. Further
attendances were not made.
General Survey of the Work.
It will be seen from the foregoing tables that this useful and hopeful work in preventive
medicine, as far as the general public are concerned, has now practically ceased. Only two school
children and seven children under 5 years of age made primary attendances at the Health Centre
during the course of the year. Many factors may tend to bring about this undesirable result but,
it might be reasonably expected that more parents would take advantage of the facilities which the
Council have provided for the protection of their children from this insidious and treacherous disease.
Although cases of Diphtheria have occurred amongst the nursing staff since immunisation was commenced
it will be observed that the incidence rate has fallen from 45 per cent, to 3.3 per cent., which means
a very considerable saving in money quite apart from the benefit to individual members of the nursing
staff. It is very improbable that a sufficient number of individuals will ever be immunised against
Diphtheria to have any appreciable effect on the incidence rate for the country as a whole, or for any
particular district, but further education in health matters would most probably result in more parents
arranging to have their children immunised.
Hospital Buildings.
During the year a Cubicle Pavilion containing ten beds was completed and brought into use
during September. A new addition to the Nurses Home containing 14 bedrooms and a recreation
room was also completed. It was the intention of the Council to erect three Cubicle Pavilions, each
containing ten beds, but owing to certain theoretical objections made by the Ministry of Health
regarding the design of the Pavilions the building of two has had to be postponed.
It is now possible to form an opinion as to whether the design of the building can be improved
upon and also to judge the capability of one pavilion dealing with all the cases admitted to hospital
which ought to be treated in a cubicle. The official number of beds in the Hospital according to
the requirements of the Ministry of Health as regards cubic space, etc., is 132, which is inadequate
to deal with the infectious diseases requiring hospital treatment arising in a population of 177,973.
The standard laid down by the Ministry is one bed per 1,000 of the population, the Hospital is
accordingly short of 45 beds. In order to make up for this deficiency, it is necessary to provide
beds and cots in the wards in excess of the official number. Such an arrangement is not satisfactory.
The incidence rate of complications amongst the patients and the incidence rate of sickness amongst
the nursing staff, invariably show an increase when there is insufficient cubic space per head in the
wards.
As the Smallpox Hospital at Kingsbury, containing 35 beds (ordinary infectious diseases
standard), is to be used for another purpose, these beds will not be available for use as an overflow
for convalescent cases from the Municipal Hospital.
The proportion of patients requiring cubicle nursing is considerable—approximately 15.20
per cent., and these cases may be classified as follows:—
(1) Many of the milder cases of suspected Diphtheria and Scarlet Fever cannot be
definitely diagnosed without several days observation, and it is not desirable to admit these
cases to a ward containing definite cases many of which may be in the acute and infectious
stage.