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APPENDIX II.
TUBERCULOSIS DISPENSARY.
REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1931.
By H. Tylford Howell, M.R.C.S., Eng., L.R.C.P., Lond.,
Clinical Tuberculosis Officer.
For the fourth year in succession 1 am pleased to report 'there has been
no change in the personnel of the Dispensary.
The sessions have remained the same, patients being seen on Monday,
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings from 10 to 12
o'clock; Wednesday evenings from 5.30 to 7; and on Thursday evenings
from 7.30 to (J o'clock. Saturday morning is reserved for school children
and their mothers, and the evening sessions for patients who are at work
during the day, and for those who find it inconvenient to attend one
of the morning sessions.
Patients may attend during any part of a session, an arrangement
which reduces the period of waiting to a minimum. In a large number
of dispensaries separate sessions are held for the different sexes. We have
never ftound this to be necessary, as the accommodation of the department
is in every way adequate to obviate the necessity for such an arrangement.
The ample dressing-room facilities enable the Tuberculosis Officer to
-examine patients in the order of their arrival at the Hospital irrespective
of sex, and privacy is ensured, since the dressing-rooms are not used
by more than one patient at a time, unless they are members of the same
family. The consulting-rooms, waiting-rooms, laboratory, and offices for
the Tuberculosis Officers and Clerk are also in every way satisfactory. The
structural alterations reported last year have proved advantageous, enabling
patients to leave the department from the dressing-rooms direct instead of
passing through the consulting-rooms as previously.
The Tuberculosis Officers continue to utilise to an increasing degree the
opportunities for consultation with the various departments of the Hospital.
These enable us to investigate all cases with little loss of time, for, when
necessary, the opinion of a Physician, Surgeon, I.aryngologist, Radiologist,
Pathologist or Dentist is immediately available. It is thus possible to make
a thorough investigation of a case, including sputum and X-ray examinations,
within a period of 24 hours. The value of personal consultation with the
specialist concerned and of our close clinical contact with the Hospital StalT
— which afford constant opportunities for discussing the merits of new
methods of treatment and diagnosis—cannot be over-estimated.
We are grateful to the Hospital for providing immediate admission in
cases of emergency, and to the Staff for their courtesy in giving us every
facility for following up our cases while in the wards.
The number of patients referred to the Radiologist tends to increase
yearly, for recent advances in technique and greater experience in the