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remarks it will be seen that uncomplicated cases of scarlet fever are removed from
hospital so soon as is practicable, but there is still a very real prejudice on the part
of the public against persons with any form of peeling being discharged, and, whilst
I believe it would be quite possible to save a certain amount of time by discharging
patients from hospital before they have quite finished peeling, I am persuaded that
the time is not yet ripe for such action to be taken.
The possibility in Barking of replacing hospital treatment in certain instances
by nursing and supervision at home is remote. With what may be termed an
essentially industrial population and with so many employers hesitating to employ
persons from houses where there is infectious disease—indeed there are some such
employers who refuse to do so—the nursing of infectious diseases in the homes
of Barking is not likely substantially to diminish the needs of the Borough for
hospitalisation.
In a town the size of Barking there has hitherto been no need to set up any
special organisation to deal with the selection of cases for admission to your own
hospital, the more so because of the personal association between your own Medical
Officer and the other doctors practising in the area, with whom on very numerous
occasions throughout the year your officer has been in consultation prior to the
admission of eases to hospital.
It has always been your custom to admit cases of measles to hospital when they
are complicated by broncho-pneumonia and when such accommodation is available.
I hope it will be possible to make such accommodation more readily available in the
future than it has been in the past, and the opening of the new hospital will
materially help towards this end.
It is impossible this year to complete a report of this nature without saying
something of the old infectious fever hospital, which is now overshadowed, literally
and metaphorically, by the new infectious fever hospital which is being erected on
an adjacent site. It is to be hoped that the spirit of service and sacrifice which
has characterised this hospital in the past will follow it into the new buildings in which
it will be housed in the future.
There has been an enormous amount of good work done in what has now come
to be known as the old isolation hospital, and because it has been found necessary
to build a more up-to-date building we should none the less think with pride and
respect of those who gave to Barking this first isolation hospital. If we have
climbed on the backs of those who first saw the need for succouring the diseased
in their distress and if from this higher position we have a clearer view of what is
necessary to carry out their ideals, we must be thankful to them for the work which
they have done and on no account belittle their efforts because we, with the help of
their foundations, are able to do something better.