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REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH FOR 1962 3
always been so and 1962 was no exception. There was never any
reason to advise mass vaccination of the population in Wandsworth;
in fact, we did all we could to restrain the demand for
vaccination. It quickly became apparent, however, that there was a
very insistent clamour amongst a proportion of the population for
vaccination and this it was felt had to be met. Accordingly, arrangements
were made for much extended vaccination clinics and during
this period approximately 33,000 people were vaccinated either by
general practitioners or the health department of the London County
Council. In the event, I think we about struck the happy medium. By
discouraging vaccination (except, of course, when it was necessary
on public health grounds) the situation never got out of hand although
admittedly there were some very long queues; at the same
time, public morale was sustained in that anyone who really felt he
should be vaccinated was vaccinated. In this connection, it is interesting
to note the increased requests for the authentication of International
certificates of vaccination which we received from the
public. These certificates are necessary for purpose of travel to certain
foreign countries and, during the smallpox "scare", it was thought
that these certificates would be required for travel on the Continent
although normally this is not so. The result was that instead of
issuing our "normal" number of International vaccination certificates,
namely 2,000 odd, we did, in fact, issue over 15,000. One wonders
whether the demand for vaccination in the early months of 1962 was
as much to ensure entry into foreign countries as the desire to
protect against the illness.
It has been my dismal duty in these Reports in past years to refer
to the shortage of public health inspectors. This year I find myself in
the novel and happy position of being able to state that in 1962 for
the first time in many years we were able to recruit up to the full
number of our establishment of public health inspectors. Our extra
staff did not join us until the second half of the year and the actual
statistics may not fully reflect the increased work which was carried
out. In any case, bare figures are an inadequate indication of work
which is essentially advisory and supervisory in character. What
probably is as important as the number of visits shown is the extra
time which inspectors could devote to individual problems and here,
of course, it is difficult to provide a measure. In one respect, however,
the increase in the number of inspectors came at a convenient
time in that it coincided with the increased attention which was paid
during the year to the problem of houses in multiple occupation.
The Housing Act, 1961, provided extra powers to local authorities
to deal with houses let in lodgings or in multiple occupation but little
progress could be made until the Regulations which the Minister
was empowered to make under the Act were actually made. During
the year, the Housing (Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation)
Regulations, 1962, came into operation.
This is a considerable public health and social problem