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Public Health Department,
Civic Centre,
Dagenham.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the Borough of Dagenham.
Once again it is my duty to report on the health of Dagenham, and at the time of
writing this introduction one event has taken place which although it did not occur
during the year under review cannot be allowed to pass without mention. It is the
retirement of Alderman Mrs. A. E. Prendergast from the Chairmanship of the Public
Health Committee and of the Health Area Sub-Committee, as well as her retirement
from the Council.
Mrs. Prendergast has been associated with health matters in Dagenham for many
years and she very kindly agreed to discuss some of her early activities with me so that I
could include some of her comments in this introduction to my Annual Report for 1960.
Mrs. Prendergast came to Dagenham in 1926 and she describes a situation where
there were no schools and the children ran wild, no clinics and, indeed, very few roads as
we know them now. People were being housed in Dagenham at the rate of 300 families
a week and Mrs. Prendergast describes how a child suffering from whooping cough was
treated by the mother with three pennyworth of syrup of squills and ipecacuanha wine,
and where a bottle of Scott's Emulsion, which was the treatment during convalescence,
cost 10½d to buy and perhaps meant foregoing something on the table.
Becontree Clinic, she says, was the first purpose-built clinic, and she played her
part in the early efforts of the Tuberculosis Care Association to provide clothing and other
help in necessitous cases. She is proud of her activities in the establishment of a "clinic
for women over 40," which she felt was so necessary for women after childbearing, where
they could get advice following examination and where many of them were referred to
hospital for necessary treatment.
The war interrupted much of the progress but did not stop the establishment of the
chiropody clinics for which Mrs. Prendergast can claim most of the credit and of which
she is justifiably proud.
Then came the upheaval created by the National Health Service Act of 1946, although
the results of it have been of such benefit to many of the people Mrs. Prendergast
has been trying to help for so many years.
I would like to thank her for the help she has given to me since I came to Dagenham
in 1955 and for the enthusiasm with which she has supported my efforts, and to wish
her well in the future.
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