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48
The institution is centrally situated in the Borough, and practically all its
patients are St. Pancras residents.
196 "contacts and suspects" have been examined at this dispensary during
the year at the request of the Medical Officer of Health.
(2) The Tuberculosis Dispensary at University College Hospital, Goicer
Street, W.C. This also is a well-equipped tuberculosis dispensary, consisting
of waiting-room, dressing-rooms, consulting-room and laboratory, and is
worked by a specially appointed tuberculosis officer under the superintendence
of the consulting staff. The dispensary is available for teaching purposes,
this hospital being attached to a large medical school. The premises were
not ready until 1st January, 1914, but for some months before that date the
dispensary officer was working at the hospital in the general out-patient
department.
On 22nd January, 1914, the Local Government Board expressed themselves
as satisfied with the general arrangements of this dispensary, but withheld
their formal approval under the National Insurance Act until the dispensary
should have come to some arrangement with the Councils of the Boroughs in
its neighbourhood with a view of its serving a definite area of local
government.
I am informed by the Dispensing Officer, Dr. M. M. Khan, that during the
last six months of 1913 there were 398 attendances at this tuberculosis
dispensary, of which about 134 were of insured persons. As mentioned above,
however, the dispensary was not in full working order during these months.
Not all of the above were St. Pancras patients, as this hospital, being
situated near the Borough boundary, serves an area which comprises parts of
neighbouring Boroughs.
Besides the two existing dispensaries above mentioned, the Borough Council
have received communications from the Royal Free Hospital, Gray's Inn
Road, indicating the desire of the hospital to establish a tuberculosis dispensary.
A letter was addressed to the Board to this effect by the Secretary to the
hospital on 8th January, 1913. Up to the end of the year, however, no
tuberculosis dispensary had been founded by the hospital.
Although two tuberculosis dispensaries were in active work in the Borough
at the close of 1913, no Borough scheme for the dispensary treatment of
tuberculosis had been formulated. The question of the preparation of a
scheme for submission to the Local Government Board was at that time under
consideration by the Council. With the St. Pancras Dispensary (and a
projected branch in the north of the Borough) for the part of the Borough
lying north of Euston Road, and the dispensary at University College
Hospital for the part lying south of Euston Road (viz., Wards 7 and 8) there
is now ample accommodation for an efficient scheme of dispensary provision
in the Borough.
Residential Institutions. The duty of making arrangements for the treatment
of tuberculosis in residential institutions rests with the County Council,
but no scheme for such treatment appears to have been settled, and, in fact,
no such treatment is yet being provided out of public funds for the non-insured.