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113
individual: they are the problems of a whole family and must be
dealt with on the broader familiar basis. The national scheme
dealing with the treatment and prevention of tuberculosis takes this
factor most clearly into account, and it was thought to be right and
fitting that the social work on tuberculosis in Croydon should be
correlated with the great medical objective—prevention. To take
one instance: the provision of extra nourishment. Prolonged illness
is always liable to lower the standard of living; it is not only
the patient who suffers from this, every member of the family is
equally affected, but it is particularly unfortunate in the case of
tuberculosis where certain food values are acknowledged to play an
important part in the individual's resistance to the disease. Where
the patient is the wage earner of the family, the position of the
contact meinlbers of the household is particularly difficult. In the
majority of cases application has to be made to Public Assistance
authorities for relief, meanwhile ariangements are made for the
patient to have institutional treatment, the source of infection is
thus temporarily removed, the house in disinfected, and now is
the time to build up the resistance of the contact members of the
household, and this has to be done on an income reduced to subsistence
level. Particularly in those cases where young children
have been in contact with a massive infection, the After-Care
Committee makes grants for extra nourishment for the child
contacts whilst the patient is undergoing treatment, if the family
income is so small that adequate nourishment cannot otherwise be
provided.
During this year £251 was spent for the relief of the tuberculous
patients and their families. 105 cases received assistance
directly from the Committee, apart from the very large numlber
referred to the Public Assistance authorities and the Unemployment
Assistance Board. Bedding was supplied in 17 cases, clothing in
54 cases, extra nourishment in 26 cases. Cash grants were made
in 22 cases, the majority being to enable relatives to visit the patient
if he was undergoing treatment at some distance from Croydon:
allowances towards rent, insurance, and the cost of removal to a
Council house, if recomlmended under the Tuberculosis Scheme,
comprised the remainder.
Our thanks are again due to the many funds who co-operate
in assisting tuberculous patients , for the help and consideration
shown by the Public Assistance Committee and the Unemployment
Assistance Board, the immense amount of work and good will
rendered to the tuberculous ex-Service men by the British Liegion
and other Army funds.