Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Report on the sanitary condition of the Hackney District for the year 1913
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fact, it is necessary that the Tuberculosis Regulations should be
taken and considered by the Sanitary Authority in conjunction
with the clauses of the Public Health Acts, relating to sanitation
and the control of infectious diseases. If this is done, the Committee
will have no difficulty in arriving at the conviction that
it is the clear duty of the Borough Council to take their place in
the national scheme for the treatment and prevention of tuberculosis.
The part which is recommended by the Departmental
Committee, with the approval of the Local Government Board,
to be assigned to the Metropolitan Boroughs, is as above indicated,
the provision of the "dispensary unit," each Borough Council
being responsible, so far as dispensary treatment is concerned,
for the treatment of the tuberculous sick of its inhabitants.
With regard to the premises themselves, the Committee report:
"In most instances it will probably be found that existing buildings
can readily be adapted for the purpose of a dispensary; in
other cases it may be necessary to build a dispensary; or, again,
it may be convenient that the dispensary should form a department
of an existing hospital or infirmary. The dispensaries should
be easy of access to the working class population."
Financial Arrangements.
With regard to the financial arrangements between Exchequer,
Insurance Committees, London County Council, and Metropolitan
Boroughs for the treatment of tuberculous persons, these are far
from being settled. The present position may be gathered from
the following extract from the Local Government Board's letter
of 11th December, 1912, on this subject, addressed to the London
County Council:—
"On the question of finance the County Council will have
seen the general statements made in the Board's circulars of
the 14th May and the 6th instant. In the former it was stated
that the Board proposed to adopt the financial