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Nearly 50 per cent. (i.e., 134) of the students successfully trained since 1948 and
appointed to the Council's staff as health visitors are still in the service. At 31.12.56,
50 students were undergoing training.
Training
student
hospital
nurses
Associated with an increase in the number of students has been the appointment of
an additional health visitor tutor and the up-grading of the former health visitor tutor
to principal health visitor tutor.
Members of the medical and nursing staff continued to give instruction to student
nurses at hospitals and to other students throughout the year.
Staff medical
examinations
The number or references to the department tor medical examination, tor advice
concerning the health of staff and for the fitness of candidates for appointment totalled
15,598 compared with 14,657 in 1955. Members of the staff found to be permanently
unfit for further duty with the Council numbered 302 and 297 candidates were found
to be unfit for appointment. Under reciprocal arrangements, provincial medical officers
of health arranged for the examination of 69 entrants to the Council's service and the
Council's medical officers examined 76 candidates for provincial appointments. The
staff medical examiners made 108 home visits to examine members of the staff who were
unable to travel, compared with 81 in 1955.
Food-handlers
in contact
with
infectious
disease
Arrangements were continued tor the bacteriological examination of specimens from
members of the food-handling staft in Council establishments who had been absent
from work suffering from illnesses which might have given rise to food-borne infection
or who had been in contact with such illness in their own homes.
In order to comply with the requirements of the Food Hygiene Regulations, 1955,
the public health department became responsible for the duty of notifying the appropriate
metropolitan borough medical officers of health whenever a member of the
Council's food-handling staff was found to be suffering from, or a carrier of, any of
certain specified diseases. Details of the procedure being followed to deal with each
case were also included to prevent the possibility of duplication of action. During the
year, 446 persons (including 139 contacts) were referred for bacteriological examination,
all but 16 of whom were allowed to resume work after examination. These figures
compared with 252 persons referred (58 contacts) in the previous year. The 16 who were
regarded as infectious were referred to their private doctors for treatment before being
allowed to return to duty.
128