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41
which provides for youths between 14 and 18 years of age and, during treatment,
trains them for clerical employment or for gardening work.
A feature of the scheme is the facility with which it is possible to interchange
patients between various types of institution. Thus patients who deteriorate
while under sanatorium treatment or develop complications are returned to general
or special hospitals ; the constant outflow of patients from general hospitals to institutions
in the country is a considerable asset in creating an atmosphere of hopefulness
among the bedridden patients.
Further features worthy of note concerning the general hospitals are (1) the liaisoD
between Grove Park tuberculosis hospital and Lewisham general hospital as regards
pregnant women, and (2) the unit at St. Mary Abbots hospital, Kensington, for
thoracic surgery. As regards the former, pregnant women are sent to Grove Park
hospital for treatment of tuberculosis and while there attend the ante-natal clinic
at Lewisham hospital situated nearby, to which they are admitted for the confinement.
They can afterwards, if necessary, resume treatment for tuberculosis at
Grove Park hospital or elsewhere.
The auxiliary services provided by the Council are as set out in the report for
1936.
During the year there has been a pronounced rise compared with 1936 in the
number of notifications of pulmonary tuberculosis. This has reacted upon the
number of applications for residential treatment under the scheme. The rise in the
number of applications has been most marked in regard to females, the increase
being 27 males and 225 females over the number of applications for the previous
year. The increase in applications for residential treatment, the more extensive
use of artificial pneumothorax and other surgical methods of treatment combined
with the additional use of settlement sanatoria, and larger provision for destitute
ambulant patients has necessitated additional provision for residential accommodation.
Applications
for residential
treatment
The increased accommodation has been obtained in voluntary establishments
in various parts of the country. The Council has been able to satisfy the demands
"made upon it without materially increasing the period of waiting for vacancies.
Another marked feature of the year under review has been the increased use
made of tuberculosis wards in the Council's general hospitals. Throughout the
year the pressure on beds in general hospitals has been constant.

Operation of
tuberculosis
scheme
during 1937
N.B.—The above figures include cases dealt with by the Insurance Committee from 1914
to 1921.
† The figures for 1931 and 1932 include patients sent to sanatoria as "municipal" patients independently
of the tuberculosis scheme, and those for years from 1933 onwards include these patients and also
tuberculous patients treated in the Council's general hospitals, who since 1st April, 1933, have all
been regarded as tuberculosis scheme patients.