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THE HEALTH OF BARKING.
There were 4,926 attendances under your Public Adult Scheme, the number
in the previous year being 5,957. The number of visits paid under the Maternity
and Child Welfare Service was 2,821, as compared with 1,748 in 1945.
Ophthalmic Service.
I think most would agree that of the sense perceptions which keep us in
touch with the outside world, none is more treasured than the ability to see. The
eye is a delicate organ and commonly enough is unable to permit vision as clear as
we would wish, or only does so under strain which may cause headaches. It is well
established that such care of the eyes as is desirable requires the services of an eye
specialist. Mr. W. A. Gray, your Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon, has held
clinical sessions throughout the year 1946.
Squint training forms an interesting branch of this service. By means of a
synoptophore, a complex and expensive piece of apparatus, the movements of a
child's eyes can be trained so that weak muscles are made strong and the squint
I corrected. What indian clubs will do for the development of the bicep muscles of
I the arms, so will the synoptophore do for weak eye muscles which are the cause of
I squint.
The ophthalmic service which naturally is particularly directed towards school
children, for whom no charges are made, also covers mothers and toddlers at token
rates, and other members of the public under the Public Adult Scheme.
Statistics in relation to the work of this service are given in Tables XII and
XIII in Appendix B.
Hospital Facilities.
Hospital facilities remain a thorn in our flesh. The fact is there are not
sufficient hospital beds in the country ; most hospital buildings are far too old and
quite out of keeping with the possibilities of modern medicine. Moreover, their
organisation and co-ordination are not satisfactory; a point recognised by the
setting up of the new Hospital Regions.
Oldchurch County Hospital takes the bulk of our cases, but considerable
numbers are admitted to the London Hospital, King George Hospital and other
hospitals in London.
The difficulty in finding accommodation for the chronic sick is notorious. Nor
is the type of accommodation, when at last secured, always of a satisfactory nature.
Delay before admission is particularly tragic in the case of the person suffering
from tuberculosis, because this is a disease where ' delay is dangerous ' indeed.
The Council has allocated the sum of £300 to the hospitals which have served
Barking residents during the year.
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