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in connection with the care or removal of a friend or relative to a hospital or institution, as to
the care of children, or in some personal problem concerning which the caller is worried.
It is the aim of the department that in no case is the enquiry unanswered.
Many of the complaints relate to housing, the applicant relating the number of years
he has waited, the time he has been resident in the borough, the size of his family, the inadequacy
of his accommodation and various medical and social reasons why he should receive priority.
Insofar as possible an attempt is made to ameliorate the conditions under which the applicant
is living pending re-housing. This can often be done by the remedying of sanitary defects
and the solving of family and social problems.
The magnitude of the work of the department is indicated by the fact that no less than
57,642 visits were made by your public health staff during 1951.
I feel sure the Council will regret the slight increase in the number of statutory notices
it was necessary to serve. It will regret still more the fact that a summons had to be taken
out in 201 cases, and I would assure the members of the Council that before legal proceedings
are commenced every step has been taken beforehand to secure a peaceful settlement. In
every case an intimation notice and a statutory notice must be served, but in addition a warning
letter is always sent asking the person responsible to remedy the defect and thus avoid the
necessity of seeking the help of the Court.
House to house inspections were commenced towards the end of 1950. Each of your
district sanitary inspectors carries out a certain number each month, and during the year the
total was 325. This figure is not high, but it indicates a trend in the right direction, namely,
to prevent property becoming the subject of a complaint rather than to wait until occupants
seek the help of the department. The houses in question are mostly tenement houses and
these routine inspections secure that the tenants live in clean rooms and are provided with
reasonable amenities such as accommodation for cooking and a water supply on one of the
floors occupied by each family in the house.
Infectious Diseases.
The number of cases of measles notified during the year was 1,993 compared with 1,057
in 1950. Dysentery also shows an increase, there being notified 106 cases compared with 44.
This type of dysentery is usually of a mild nature. It is, however, highly infectious and tends
to affect children of nursery and school age. When it occurs in a nursery it may easily affect
the majority of children and virtually bring its activities to a temporary end. Knowledge as
to the method of the spread of infection is not very certain, and although every precaution is,
taken to prevent its entry into a nursery and to control it once it is there by means of exclusion
isolation, disinfection and general methods of hygiene, the disease usually terminates when
most of the children who are susceptible to infection have contracted it. There has been no
mortality resulting from dysentery. It is probable that there are many cases of infection due
to this type of the dysentery germ, known as the sonne bacillus which are so mild that medical
advice is not always sought and the disease is not notified.
Apart from these two diseases St. Pancras was reasonably free from infection. Only
five cases of acute poliomyelitis occurred as compared with 26 in the previous year, and of
these only three showed paralytic symptoms.
Tuberculosis.
Once again I would like to draw the attention of the Council to the problem of tuberculosis.
Within this volume will be found a table setting out the notifications of tuberculosis that have
been received during the year, and investigations we have made in connection with them.