View report page

2
Maternal death rate. No deaths of mothers due to childbirth
were recorded in 1953. This is the second year that such a
satisfactory position has materialised, the previous occasion
being in 1949.
(The maternal mortality rate for England and Wales in 1953
was 0.76; the figure for the County of London is not yet
available.)
Infectious diseases. There was no serious outbreak of
infectious disease in the borough during 1953. The total number
of notifications received was 1,846 in comparison with 1,731 in
the previous year. The slight increase in notifications was
mainly due to the 485 notified cases of whooping cough in 1953
compared with 228 cases notified in 1952.
It is unfortunate that two cases of diphtheria were
notified in 1953 compared with no case in the previous year.
Neither of these cases strictly "belonged" to Kensington as the
infections were contracted overseas. It is on such occasions
that emphasis is given to the need to maintain a high standard
of diphtheria immunisation, in order that Kensington residents,
especially children, should be protected against the introduction
of diphtheria from outside sources. The danger of diphtheria
still exists, and efforts must be maintained, and indeed increased,
to ensure that every infant and schoolchild in the borough is
immunised against this disease.
Tuberculosis, The death rate from all forms of tuberculosis
per 100,000 population was 19.2 which is slightly higher than
last year's figure (18.5), which was the lowest figure ever
recorded in Kensington.
Repair of houses. In last year's report attention was
drawn to the urgent problem of maintaining dwelling houses in a
reasonable state of habitation, and the conclusions of the
Borough Council, after careful consideration, were enunciated in
the following paragraphs:-
"We are driven inevitably to the conclusion that
there is no satisfactory way out of the present
difficulties with regard to the disrepair of houses
other than by increasing the rents of houses subject
to the Rent Restrictions Acts. This cannot be done
without an amendment of the law, and it is a matter
of national policy on which the Government would have
to decide.
It is felt that in addition to any legislative
change designed to meet the existing difficulties,
there should be some method introduced to control
furnished and unfurnished sub-tenancies, so that they
become proportional in yield to the gross standard
rent. At present, in many instances, the tenant
receives aggregate amounts from sub-letting greatly
in excess of the rent paid to the landlord, who is
unable to afford the high cost of repairing the rapid
deterioration which results from multiple sub-tenancies
- often by undesirables."
The Government have introduced the Housing Repairs and Rents
Bill, and it is hoped that, when this Bill becomes law, the
difficulties which have confronted the Council in exercising
their powers under Section 9 of the Housing Act, 1936, (which
deals with the repair of unfit houses) will be considerably
reduced.