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Page 29
The Public Health (Tuberculosis) Regulations, 1952, clearly state
that "every medical practitioner who forms the opinion that a
person is suffering from tuberculosis shall, as soon as he forms that
opinion, send to the Medical Officer of Health a certificate
(of notification)", and since the directors are medical practitioners
they cannot claim exemption from this obligation.
I know that many directors of mass X-ray units will immediately
say "we do not diagnose, we merely send patients with abnormal
X-rays to the chest clinics for investigation and the chest physicians
make the actual diagnosis". If this is so then I regard the practice
of bringing the patient back to the unit for clinical examination to
be a waste of time both for the patient and the director.
Where, under the present system, the director sees both the patient
and his X-ray he must on occasion "form the opinion that a
person is suffering from tuberculosis", and I have the gravest doubts
as to whether any administrative instruction from any Ministry can
excuse anyone from obeying the law of the land. What really concerns
me is that the existing ruling means that the Medical Officer of Health
is deprived of information vital to him in the control of this disease.
You yourselves have been most unhappy about the present position
from other aspects. In particular you have been told that you cannot
expect visits from the unit more often than once in every three years,
and in consequence you have pressed the Regional Hospital Board to
increase facilities so as to enable the unit to visit Barking annually.
You also suggested that the County Council should themselves purchase
an X-ray unit for use with staff and older schoolchildren in
Barking and adjacent metropolitan Essex Boroughs, a suggestion which
was unfortunately turned down.
5 B.C.G. VACCINATION
The scheme for B.C.G. vaccination of school leavers (to which
brief reference was made in last year's report) was approved by the
County Council during the year and vaccinations were started in
dirking schools in the September Term.
The work has been carried out by Drs. Martin and Seligmann,
who attended special courses at the Hospital for Sick Children to gain
experience in the technique.
The response of parents was encouraging, over three-quarters
agreeing to allow their children to have this protection. These children
firs received a special skin test, and those showing a positive reaction
(i.e. were already thought to be resistant to tuberculosis) were excluded