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our staff in July, thereby slowing the rate of personnel loss. It is
to be hoped that our sponsorship scheme will at least maintain
staff numbers for the duration of the contracted period and that,
ultimately, prospects with this authority may be made sufficiently
attractive to induce some chiropodists to remain in the service.
To ensure maintenance of high treatment standards it is essential that adequate time be allotted for each patient and that
pressure of work must not be allowed to affect the quality of
these criteria for time, taken in the application of skills aimed at
long-termed benefits, is well spent. In pursuance of this policy
appliance centres, albeit small and inadequate, have been established at two of the clinics and it is proposed to extend these
facilities to other clinics and so obviate the need for referrals
when suitable cases present.
The last few days of the year saw the arrival of the first of the
electro-hydraulic chairs which are being installed in the larger
clinics to assist in the treatment of disabled or infirm persons. A
problem of the non-hydraulic chair is the presence of a step of
some eleven inches—necessary because the patient has to be
seated higher than in a normal chair to enable treatment to be
carried out without raising the legs far beyond the horizontal.
Two steps with risers of half the height of the existing step
would, if of adequate depth, intrude on the space required for
the chiropodist's chair. Thus, some years ago, when a design
for a fitted, folding step was considered too expensive and
difficult to incorporate in this type of chair, I designed a portable,
non-tilting intermediate step (constructed in a workshop for the
handicapped) which proved of value but not the ideal solution.
Hydraulic chairs of the time were jerky in operation, unsteady
at full height and with a step which did not descend far enough.
When altered to remedy this, the maximum seating height was
insufficient. This new chair goes a long way to meeting our
requirements, in that the lift is of sufficient range to enable
persons of quite short stature to be seated directly in it and
raised smoothly to adequate height. It is a chair to which modifications could be made and from which other models will probably stem, incorporating further desirable features when economically
possible.
The well-being of staff is always of concern and investigations
have shown that the fine dust produced by use of the chiropodial
drill can constitute a serious health hazard to the chiropodist.
The most effective method of dealing with this is to install a
suction nozzle at the site of drilling thereby removing fine particles before distribution into the surrounding atmosphere. Drills