London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Bermondsey 1922

Report on the sanitary condition of the Borough of Bermondsey for the year 1922

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I have been very carefully through the above report, and agree
with Dr. Connan's conclusions, namely, that if conditions do not
materially alter during the next six months, from what they were
during the six months under report, one Medical Officer is
sufficient for the Dispensary.
There is a good deal of misapprehension as to the functions of the
Dispensary. It is really not intended to be a kind of Out-Patients'
Department of an ordinary hospital for treating all cases of Tuberculosis,
or cases about which there is some suspicion of this disease,
but is intended rather to co-ordinate the treatment which is available
by Institutions and Practitioners in or near the Borough, and to see
that cases of Tuberculosis are not neglected.*
If it was to develop on the lines of the Out-Patients' Department
of an ordinary hospital, it would become in a short time a very
costly Institution, and the work would be merely overlapping that
of other agencies.
The Medical Officer of the Dispensary should act in the capacity of a
Consultant, and not waste his time attending ordinary routine treatment.
The Dispensary was visited in December by representatives of
the Ministry of Health and of the L.C.C.
Scheme for the Treatment of Tuberculosis for the Financial Year
commencing 1st April, 1923.
As the County Council have requested this Council to submit a
scheme before the end of the present month for the financial year
commencing Ist April, 1923, I beg to submit the following report,
which embodies all the points alluded to in the letter from the County
Council. The following is the staff concerned with the work of
Tuberculosis in the borough:—