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The Committee took up the matter with the Company concerned,
and as a result of their action the claim was paid in full.
F.M., aged 23. This patient was undergoing institutional treatment
and was rather depressed as he had no pocket money, and his
mother, a widow, was unable to make him any allowance. On enquiry
it was found that he was not entitled to insurance benefit on account of
arrears which he had been unable to pay.
The Committee granted the money for the arrears and took up
the case with the Approved Society and obtained payment of insurance
benefit.
The Health Committee discussed at several meetings a suggestion
made by the Care Committee that a handicraft class should
be established for the benefit of tuberculous patients. The Committee
were generally in favour of such a scheme, but on making
enquiries as to the effect which employment in such a class would
have upon the patients' benefit under the National Health Insurance
Acts the position was found to be obscure, and the matter was not
pursued.
Non-Dispensary Cases.
All the Tuberculosis visiting for the Borough is now undertaken
by the Dispensary staff, and this has greatly simplified and coordinated
the work. There has been a marked decrease in the cases
formerly unknown to the Dispensary. In 1934 there were 184
non-dispensary cases, but in 1935 there were only 133 cases not
on the Dispensary register, i.e., 14 per cent, of the total notified
cases.
Three hundred and eighty-three visits have been paid to these
patients during 1935 by the Dispensary nurses.
DEATHS FROM ZYMOTIC DISEASES.
The principal zymotic diseases are small-pox, measles, scarlet
fever, diphtheria (including membranous croup), whooping-cough,
enteric fever and diarrhoea.
The deaths from these causes in 1935 numbered 38, as compared
with 91 in 1934, a decrease of 58 per cent. There was a
corresponding decrease in the zymotic death-rate from 0.603 in
1934 to 0.257 in 1935.