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VII.—CONSULTATION AND OTHER
CLINICS.
X-RAY DEPARTMENT.
The year 1937 has seen the first full year's working of this
department. The total number of X-ray films taken during the
year was 1,755. A separate appointment has been made for
each patient, and this system, which the Council is aware
functions in all the municipal clinics, is of a very great advantage
to the patients since it entirely eliminates the long period of
waiting which commonly distinguishes out-patient institutions.
Every patient has been recommended for X-ray examination by
a medical practitioner. Many of them have been sent up by our
own medical officers from the Tuberculosis Clinic; a small number
of patients have come from the medical officers of the Infant
Welfare and Ante-Natal Centres and a few have been sent from
the Children's Clinic by Dr. Shelley. Nearly a fifth of the total
number of patients have been sent by general practitioners
working in the borough. This is a very encouraging feature of
the work, and it is even more satisfactory to be able to record
that in quite an appreciable proportion of the cases general
practitioners have accompanied their own patients in order to see
the screening and films for themselves. In this way, while we have
been of undoubted assistance to the doctors, they have also
themselves come into closer contact with the medical officers of
the department. We have done everything in our power to
encourage doctors in this practice, since it is not only a distinct
advantage both to doctor and to patient, but it also helps to foster
that intimate and harmonious relation which ought to exist
between the general practitioner and the Public Health Department.
A large number of patients have naturally been sent from
the Tuberculosis Clinic, and in general it may be said that an
endeavour is made to secure that every patient attending that
clinic is submitted to X-ray examination at least once. The fact
that the X-ray Department is under municipal control and situated