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10
"It will be noted that the total attendances are well maintained and the
Deptford Chest Clinic remains a busy hive of industry. No less than 1,234
new cases attended for investigation during the year 1962. This, of course,
involves a good deal of work and compares well with the number of new
Out-Patients seen in the medical departments of local general hospitals.
This will give some measure of the activity concerned here. The main
source of gross active pulmonary tuberculosis remains Carrington House
with its floating population of males, and the follow-up of these cases
often taxes the ingenuity of my staff, but the degree of success is relatively
high, possibly due to the nearness of the chest clinic to Carrington House.
I believe there is some likelihood of the Deptford Chest Clinic being
moved into the new Greenwich District Hospital at a later date, and one
wonders whether the follow up of such cases will be made less easy by
such a move and whether, in fact, patients from Brockley and New Cross
attending here will find the move a convenient one. In the past the policy
has been to segregate chest patients from others for infective reasons.
Careful note is being taken of the smoking habits of the local populace
attending the clinic, and a small investigation is in progress. A small
service is also being started here for excessive tobacco smokers and their
special problems in relation to chest diseases. That these persons are
exposing themselves to the risk of lung cancer is now no longer a mere
possibility. A fairly large number of patients attending the clinic were
investigated with this possibility in mind. Over the last few years the
average number of cases of cancer of the lung found here has been one
per fortnight."
Mass Miniature Radiography
I append below a report which I have received from the Director of
the Mass Radiography Unit:
"I have pleasure in enclosing as requested figures for work carried out in
Deptford during 1962. You will note that nineteen cases of significant
tuberculosis were discovered, seven of whom were resident at Carrington
House. These latter were found among 130 examined there, and it appears
that the incidence in that group remains very high.
It is interesting to note that among a total of 3,581 not previously
examined, the incidence is 3.9 per thousand including Carrington House,
and 2.6 per thousand with this group excluded.
The public surveys in side roads near New Cross Gate and Deptford
High Street produced seven cases of tuberculosis, of which four men and
two women had not been previously examined, giving an incidence of
3.8 and 2.2 per thousand respectively. It seems that the time has not yet
arrived when this type of survey becomes unproductive, and that efforts
to reach the unexamined part of the population should be continued".