View report page

home nursing
This service, together with approximately half of the domiciliary
midwifery service, is still administered from the County Training
Home at Leytonstone.
vaccination and immunisation
Smallpox Vaccination
The number of primary vaccinations carried out in 1958 was
187 in infants under one year, 88 in those over one year. This means
that just over 20% of infants are being vaccinated during the first
year of life.
Poliomyelitis Vaccination
At Che end of 1957 we had received instructions to extend the
scheme from 5-9 year-olds only to children up to and including
those of 15 years of age and to expectant mothers.
The school children were quickly tackled and with the valuable
co-operation of schools some 12,500 consent forms were given out.
By the end of February well over 6,000 completed forms had been
returned and. remembering that parents had the choice of English
made or Imported vaccine, family or clinic doctor, the task of
collating records was considerable. The acceptance rate of expectant
mothers was rather low, something like 25%, but was still higher
than in many other towns.
To try to raise the general acceptance rate still more, the schools
helped us once again in the summer by distributing a further consent
form and leaflet to each school child still unregistered. This offer
produced some 2,000 new consents.
During the first few months of the year vaccine was not plentiful
and at the end of June when nearly 8,000 people had applied for
vaccination there were more than 5,000 not fully protected. However,
supplies improved as the year progressed and only some 600
had not been offered an appointment when it closed, and of inmost
were cases where the parents insisted upon waiting for English
type vaccine which was still in short supply. This meant that approximately
70% of the under 16's had been given two injections since
the introduction of the scheme in 1956.
The abstaining family doctors were again asked if they would
like to join the scheme and many more did so. As can be seen from
Page 18