View report page

81
SHOREDITCH TUBERCULOSIS CARE COMMITTEE
The following is the annual report of the Tuberculosis Care Committee.
During the year 1937 there has been nothing in the work of the Tuberculosis
Care Committee which differs materially from that of the previous two years.
The number of new patients has increased slightly this year and the number of
cases helped is also larger. The Committee have relied, as will be noticed, more than
ever upon the Shoreditch Tuberculosis Fund, but it is a natural thing that, wherever
this Fund can as well be employed, application is not made elsewhere. Nevertheless,
the Committee still have to thank many outside bodies for their help; the Public
Assistance Committee, to whom so many of the patients have to apply; the Red Cross
Committee who always have ready help for patients who are war pensioners; the
East London Workers among the Poor who are particularly helpful in sending for
convalescence members of a patient's family who are in need of a rest; the School
Care Committee who assist by giving school meals and free milk to the school children
; and the many other societies both in the Borough and outside who have worked
with the Committee during the year. It is regretted that repeated difficulty has been
experienced with regard to the cases of patients and their families who are dependent
on the Unemployment Assistance Board and that so far it has been impossible to
establish a basis of friendly co-operation with the particular Area Office which covers
the greater part of the Borough of Shoreditch.
The assistance given to patients from the Fund has been along the usual lines for
the most part—clothing for sanatorium, fares for relatives to visit, pocket-money
given, etc., and these, although most important from the patient's point of view, make
monotonous reading and can as well be appreciated from the plain statement of the
figures appended. With the development of the Fund, however, there has been an
increase in the number of cases where " special help " has been given. This includes
help formerly outside the Committee's scope and can best be explained by the two
following examples.
2516. Patient, husband and four children moved to an L.C.C. house at
Dagenham, Husband, the only wage-earner, coming to Shoreditch to work.
The journey proved long and expensive and the family was left with insufficient
money for food. The Committee provided him with a bicycle.