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7
Housing matters continued to be given high priority during the
year. The Council with commendable courage and foresight made
a start with a slum clearance programme, despite their many
rehousing commitments and the consequent difficulties which will
have to be faced in rehousing the displaced tenants. They are to
be congratulated on resuming their pre-war attempts to eliminate
slum property from our Borough.
Reference to the appropriate section will indicate the strenuous
efforts which are made by the Sanitary Inspectors to maintain the
many poor properties in a reasonable state of repair. It would be
unrealistic not to admit that in many cases this is a losing battle and
a mere palliative which can be resolved only by eventual demolition
and clearance. This is being done by this Council and the London
County Council to the utmost of their rehousing resources.
No account of the year 1952 would be complete without a
reference to the great fog which engulfed London in December, and
at some length in the body of the Report an attempt has been made
to relate the incident to the welfare of the inhabitants of Greenwich.
It has been the custom for me, in these Annual Reports, to
enlarge on the wider issues of community health and to advance
purely personal opinions on organisation and possible deficiencies
in the Health Service. My view has always been that our present
system of health priorities is fundamentally wrong and that by
placing disproportionate emphasis on treatment and cure at the
expense of the promotive and preventive services, we may have
embarked on a journey which will lead to disappointment and
disillusionment. I developed this argument at some length in
previous Reports and, reading my remarks again after another year,
there is nothing new I can add, nor very little that in honesty I
would wish to retract. It is only by the free interplay of ideas and
the airing of differences and above all by the preservation of a
healthy empiricism that progress can be made.
My thanks are due to the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the
Public Health Committee for their support and understanding. I
gladly acknowledge the advice and friendship which I have received
from the Town Clerk and his Deputy, and I thank my other Chief
Officer colleagues for their willing co-operation. Lastly, my thanks
are due to the Staff for their loyalty and their application to duty.
I have the honour to be,
Your obedient Servant,
J. Kerr Brown,
Medical Officer of Health