View report page

is hoped that the Medical Officer of Health will take note of this
and will inform the Mass X-ray Unit of the area and encourage
it to visit that particular factory. In this way it should be
possible to find other source cases or early secondary cases, and
certainly to give some slight reassurance to the work people
in that particular factory.
In conjunction with Dr. Chalke, it has been possible to
devise a system whereby Tuberculosis Health Visitors visit the
general practitioners when one of their patients is newly notified.
It is hoped in this way to encourage the general practitioners
to feel that they all play a part in the treatment and prevention
of tuberculosis among those patients on their panel.
Vaccination with B.C.G. for contacts, especially child
contacts, was carried out at the Clinic on 25 cases during the
last six months of the year. It is expected that when the new
Ministry of Health Memorandum on B.C.G. vaccination is
issued there will be a considerable increase in the amount of this
work.
The work at the Chest Clinic has almost reached full capacity
in the existing unsatisfactory surroundings. Accommodation
for patients, health visitors, the Care-worker and the Medical
Officers is completely inadequate. This state of affairs has
already been pointed out and it must be realised that until
suitable accommodation, with adequate arrangements for taking
chest X-rays has been obtained, the Borough will be at a
constant disadvantage. The work that can be done in the
Borough could be considerably increased if all the facilities were
improved.
The Public Health (Tuberculosis) Regulations; 1952.
These Regulations, which came into operation on the
Ist May, 1952, revoke the Public Health (Tuberculosis) Regulations,
1930, and make similar provision for the notification of
tuberculosis modified to accord with the structure and administration
of the services now being provided under the National
Health Service Acts. It is no longer a statutory requirement for
the Medical Officer of Health to keep a register of tuberculosis
notifications, but in an accompanying circular the Minister of
Health urges that he should continue to do so, in the same way
as he keeps a record, for his own purposes and without any legal
requirement, of notifications of other diseases. The effect of
these new regulations does, however, relieve the Medical Officer
of Health of the responsibility for making certain periodical
returns in so comprehensive a form as hitherto.