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92
TUBERCULOSIS DISPENSARY
REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1925.
By H. Tylford Howell, M.R.C.S., Eng., L.R.C.P., LoncL,
Clinical Tuberculosis Officer.
In order to present a coherent statement of the activities of the Dispensary during
the past year it is necessary to recapitulate briefly what has been said in previous
reports with reference to the routine adopted.
The personnel of the department has for the fifth successive year remained
unchanged, while patients are still seen as previously, in the mornings on Mondays,
Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 10 to 12 o'clock, and in
the evenings from 5.30 to 7 on Wednesdays, and from 7.30 to 9 on Thursdays.
We continue to occupy the same rooms as hitherto, i.e., two consulting-rooms,
each with two dressing-rooms and a dark room for throat examinations attached
with a common waiting-room. This arrangement is very satisfactory, since the
patients are interviewed in large, well-ventilated consulting-rooms, and warm
dressing-room accommodation is provided for them, while it permits of frequent
consultations between the medical officers without undue loss of time. In addition,
we retain the same rooms for clerical and laboratory work.
The suitability of the accommodation provided is only one of many points
in favour of the affiliation of Tuberculosis Dispensaries to Hospitals. In view of
recent criticisms of such affiliation other advantages of a close connection with a
modern and up-to-date hospital may be summarised briefly as follows :
1. The facilities afforded for personal consultation with the members of the
out-patient staff of the Hospital on difficult cases.
2. The power to refer cases to experts on the spot for special examinations,
e.g., to the Surgeon, the Laryngologist, the Radiologist, the Dentist, and the
Pathologist, the latter of whom is always kind enough to carry out elaborate
investigations which cannot be undertaken in our own laboratory.
3. The close association with the resident staff of the Hospital, whose help
has been invaluable, not only in providing immediate in-patient treatment in
emergency, but also in giving us opportunities of keeping in touch with the latest
methods of treatment and diagnosis as they are brought into practice. I gratefully
acknowledge the facilities offered for this intimate collaboration, which I believe
to be of inestimable benefit to us in our work.
4 The mere fact that a dispensary is established at a hospital which has
gained a high repute over many years not only tends to give that Dispensary a
prest ge that it might otherwise lack in the earlier stages of its existence, but also
engenders confidence among a population which has come to estimate at its correct
worth the value of hospital treatment.