London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Lewisham 1963

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Lewisham Borough]

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34
enter a Part III home of the county council or in some cases to enter
hospital. It is only the extreme case who refuses to have such help where
application will have to be made to the Magistrates' Court. In 1963
although several cases were investigated none went as far as requiring
court proceedings.
(g) Visiting
The women health officers are also infectious disease visitors.
Infectious diseases vary considerably year by year and season by season,
and during the slacker seasons of infections the women health officers
are able to put in a greater amount of visiting of old people. This
dual-purpose visiting, though not perhaps very logical, works well in
practice, and the number of visits paid to the elderly is shown in the
following table:

Table 22

NWSTotal
First visits6511649230
Futile visits865735218
Revisits3109073031520
Total46111203871963

(h) Concerts
The first of a series of concerts run by the Public Health Committee
at the Town Hall for the elderly was held in March and was attended
by some 900 old people from the clubs. This experimental concert
was regarded as highly successful, and it was therefore decided that in
the future tickets would also be made available to old people in the
borough other than members of old people's clubs. There were two
further concerts during the year, one in October and the other in
November. Apart from December, monthly concerts were planned for
the rest of the winter season up to April. Perhaps the comment made in
the local press following the October concert sums up the appreciation
of the old folk attending the concerts when it remarked that "the enthusiasm
of Beatle-fans had nothing on that shown by more than
1,000 local old folk who swarmed into the Town Hall on Wednesday
for the first of a series of monthly Concert Hall nights—they even danced
in the aisles." The concerts held since have been no less highly praised.
3. The Lewisham Old People's Welfare Association
The Lewisham Old People's Welfare Association (LOPWA),
during the year continued all its routine work, and notes on its main
activities during the year April 1963/64 (based on a report by the
secretary) are as follows:—
Meals-on-wheels service 61,867 dinners were delivered to the housebound
and to Darby and Joan clubs, 785 more than last year. (The
deliveries to the dinner clubs totalled 24,276). The dinners were drawn
from three sources; Dartmouth restaurant, 32,190; Lewisham Town
Hall canteen 211; Saville kitchen 29,784.