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G8
WOMAN INSPECTOR'S REPORT UPON CONSUMPTION.
To the Medical Officer of Health.
Sik,
I submit a report on the work done in connection with notified cases of
consumption during the year 1909.
The year has been the first in which cases of consumption treated by the
Medical Officers of the Guardians has been eompulsorily notifiable. '1 his work
is an extension of that previously don# in this Borough on the basis of voluntary
notification. In a previous report, attention has been drawn to the value of
such notification in bringing to the knowledge of this authority those cases and
families which most require advice as to general precaution, and which may
usefully be placed in connection with various helpful agencies.
The year has also been marked by the development of the long-desired
scheme for dealing with the various aspects of the disease through the charitable
and social associations of the district. The formation last autumn of the
Public Welfare Association brought into relation with each other and with
this department the philanthropic workers of the Borough. Much valuable
work has been done, and there is every prospect of still more valuable results
from the efforts of this Association, to which, and more particularly to whose
Honorary Secretaries, much gratitude is due.
We are also much indebted to the Saint Pancras Dispensary for providing
Medical examination for those suspected cases not already in the hands of
their own doctor.
We now require the notification of those cases with whose homes 110 medical
practitioner is in immediate contact If the regulations applying to the Poor
Law Medical Officers applied also to the hospitals and dispensaries, we should
then be in touch with all the cases most urgently in need of such help as we can
give; and if care is taken that the wishes of the medical attendant are regarded
and that the patient is not alarmed or harassed, we shall no doubt obtain by
voluntary notification those other cases to whom we can be of use.
To illustrate the inter-connection of Poor Law and Hospital cases it mav be
noted that of the Poor Law cases notified during the vear sixty were known to
have previously received attention at Hospitals, and of the voluntary notified
cases five were known to have been previously in the care of the Guardians.
For practical purposes, however, the pressing problem is not so much the
-discovery of new cases as the discovery of adequate means of dealing with
those already found. While every voluntary institution has a long waiting
list; while many of our people reject the help of the Guardians from hatred of
the pauper label; while there is 110 adequate fund for the provision of home
treatment either as a substitute for, or as a continuation of, sanatorium treatment;
while the provision for advanced and dying cases still requires wide extension ;
it is idle to remain satisfied with the distribution of printed and spoken advice,
-essential though this is.