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Types of case—Referrals to the public health department cover a very wide variety
of medical conditions. In the three years 521 cases have been recommended for
rehousing because of pulmonary tuberculosis and 1,122 because of other medical conditions.
A very large number, over 50 per cent. of all the cases, request accommodation on
the ground floor. This the Housing Committee have been unable to provide in every
case. Only the modern blocks have lifts, and rehousing in the older buildings depends
on vacancies on the ground floor. Experience has shown that the best to be hoped for
is accommodation on the ground or first floors. Of the first 600 non-tuberculous cases
nominated no fewer than 174 had locomotor troubles of one kind or another and wished
to avoid stairs: 30 living on high floors had had amputations and were recommended for
accommodation on a low floor, 41 had arthritis of various types, 40 were patients with
paresis of the lower limbs following poliomyelitis, and 31 were cases of disseminated
sclerosis. Another group of 164 requiring accommodation on the ground floor suffered
from cardiac conditions: more than 40 had coronary disease, and 89 had valvular disease
(12 of the cases of valvular disease had had valvotomy with partial relief). This group was
not always easy to deal with. Cardiologists and almoners sometimes pressed for groundfloor
accommodation for a patient and when enquiry showed that the nearest council
accommodation was a considerable distance from the place of work, the exertion of
climbing to the third or fourth floor to a flat within easy reach had to be weighed against
the provision of a ground-floor flat and a long journey to and from the place of work.
Another group consisted of 50 cases suffering from intestinal or urinary trouble and
living in accommodation with an outside lavatory or with one lavatory shared by several
families. In this group 26 colostomies and 13 ileostomies were rehoused in accommodation
with bathrooms. Respiratory troubles accounted for 78 cases, including 46 cases of
asthma alone or associated with bronchitis and emphysema, and 18 lobectomies or
pneumonectomies and mental illness 75 cases, but selection for rehousing within this group
is far from easy.
A large number of persons suffering from rarer conditions was rehoused for a variety of
reasons including four cases of muscular dystrophy, one of fragilitas ossium, one of
syringomyelia and one of myasthenia gravis.
In rehousing people with cardiac conditions priority has been given to those who are
still in work and to young mothers bringing up a family. There were several families who
had multiple claims for rehousing. One family had a sputum positive case of pulmonary
tuberculosis, another member with paresis of the lower limbs following poliomyelitis,
while the husband had hemiplegia and the wife was crippled after a motor accident. This
family was living on the fourth floor. In another family the husband had a peptic ulcer,
the wife mental illness, one child had chorea with a heart involvement and another had a
rheumatic heart and otitis media. In yet another family both parents were partially sighted,
the mother had colitis and there was a mentally retarded child. One patient who was
rehoused had a colostomy, was wearing a spinal jacket for a fractured vertebrae, and also
had spondylitis.
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