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5
In September, a typhoid carrier state was discovered in an
Asian child who had recently arrived from India where the infection
was thought to have been contracted. The child was treated
at home by his family doctor and he and his family remained
under observation.
During the summer, an outbreak of food poisoning occurred
in a hospital just outside the Borough which necessitated the
closing for several weeks of the hospital's maternity unit situated
within our boundary. The causative organism was salmonella
oranienburg and 331 persons were investigated by this department.
The Health Services and Public Health Act 1968 came into
operation in the autumn and, as a result, certain administrative
changes in the work of the Health Department took place. Part
III of the Act deals particularly with notifiable diseases and food
poisoning and together with the Public Health (Infectious Diseases)
Regulations, 1968, consolidates the powers and responsibilities of
local authorities and Health Departments in relation to infectious
disease work. Other important parts of this Act which come into
operation on the dates to be specified by the Secretary of State
concern maternity and child health, home nurses, domiciliary midwives
and home helps. Although these provisions add useful
powers to those already possessed by local health authorities, they
are not likely to have much impact on a department such as
Wandsworth, where the services are already well developed.
I mentioned in last year's Report that the new Maternity Unit
at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton, was expected to start
admitting patients on 1st January, 1968. This duly occurred and,
from the start, close relations were maintained between the
domiciliary midwives and the staff of the Maternity Unit. Arrangements
were completed for the Maternity Unit to run its own
ante-natal clinic at our William Harvey Centre, and this started in
the new year.
We also arranged for the domiciliary midwifery work formerly
carried out by the South London Hospital in an area adjacent to
the hospital to be undertaken by our domiciliary midwives. Discussions
took place with the Hospital Management Committee as
to the help which our domiciliary midwives could give in connection
with the general practitioner obstetric unit at the Weir Hospital.
As regards the former, the new arrangements started from
1st January. 1969, and as regards the latter, it is expected that they
will shortly be implemented.
It is expected of a Public Health Department that it should be
versatile in its functions and so I would like to make brief mention
of the efforts of the Department to help with the serious flooding
of the River Wandle in the Summerstown area in September. A
reference to this is made in the body of the Report with