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9
Daring the year much has been done with regard to your
proposals for rebuilding and extending your present hospital
accommodation for infectious fevers and for maternity cases.
The year 1928 has been a heavy one from the standpoint of
infectious diseases, and the accommodation at present available
has been strained to the uttermost. The situation has been met
generally by cutting down the period of isolation in individual
cases to the minimum, and on one occasion by opening an auxiliary
infectious fever hospital at Creeksmouth.
In my opinion it is better to cut down the period of isolation
in scarlet fever than so to overcrowd infectious fever wards that
complications are likely to arise, the which they are wont to do
under overcrowded conditions.
The danger to the community by cutting away the factor of
safety by curtailing the period of isolation is less than the personal
danger to the patients of possibly developing complications in
overcrowded wards.
Special mention must be made of the auxiliary hospital at
Creeksmouth.
The Chairman of the Health Committee, Councillor Mr. A.
Edwards, authorised opening up Creeksmouth School for this
purpose late one afternoon. Patients were admitted early the next
evening.
This was not just a stunt of the Public Health Department.
It represented the united efforts of every department of the Council
and is a very fine testimony of the team spirit I am so happy to
meet in Barking.
In all my recommendations to you I have not so much the
present needs of Barking before me as the needs of Barking a few
years hence, when without question or doubt the population
will have doubled itself, and I do urge you very seriously to take
time by the forelock, to build the necessary clinics and office