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54
Central Tuberculosis Dispensary (73 Effra Road) : Proposed
Transference to King's College Hospital.*
The premises of the Central Tuberculosis Dispensary at 73,
Effra Road, Brixton, though conveniently situated, are, as regards
structure and accommodation, unsuitable—a fact that is now
generally admitted. New premises are urgently needed, and the
Council will have to consider, at an early date, the whole subject and
to come to some final decision on the subject. The Central Dispensary,
under the Lambeth Scheme, is, as its name implies, the
pivot, around which the whole Tuberculosis Scheme for Lambeth
Borough should revolve, and it is, manifestly, therefore, the duty of
the Council to provide suitable and adequate accommodation for
the proper housing of the Central Dispensary Staff in a manner
worthy of the Lambeth Council's Public Health administration.
It is being suggested that the Council should delegate its important
tuberculosis duties to King's College Hospital in regard to the Outer
Districts of the Borough in the same way, and on the same terms, as
the Council has already done to St. Thomas's Hospital in regard to
the Inner Districts. The two cases are not comparable, and it is to
be hoped that the Council will not consent to such a suggestion as has
been made in regard to King's College Hospital and the Outer
Districts of the Borough. The Council should reserve to itself the
tuberculosis administration of the Borough and should not delegate
to an outside authority or authorities such duties, which are specially
important from the point of view of the Public Health.
The ideal Scheme is a Central Dispensary for the whole of the
Borough with a well-known General Hospital (e.g., St. Thomas's
Hospital) attached to such Scheme for consultation and diagnostic
purposes, for which purposes patients can be referred, as required,
for expert opinions and treatments of a special nature, e.g., bacteriological
and ex-Ray Examinations, artificial pneumo-thorax, and
concomitant and consequential treatments (both medical and
surgical).
With regard to St. Thomas's Hospital, which is already attached
to, and forms part of the Lambeth Scheme, the work of this Hospital
is not only consultative and curative but also, in addition, administrative
(as far as the Inner Districts of the Borough are concerned).
This arrangement was deemed to be advisable at the time of the
Lambeth Scheme being inaugurated because it was found that, at
that time, administrative work was already being satisfactorily
*This section of the Report sets out the official views of the retiring
Medical Officer of Health (Dr. Priestley), and in no way pledges the new
Medical Officer of Health (Dr. Thompson), who has been instructed by the
Council to report fully on the whole subject during 1928.