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Public Health Department,
Civic Centre,
Dagenham.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the Borough of Dagenham,
I have to report on the health of the citizens of the Borough of Dagenham during
1962. This was a busy year although the only event which made the headlines was the
occurrence of a number of cases of smallpox in Gt. Britain. This aroused people's
consciences and made them feel they wished to have immediate vaccination against this
disease. Mass vaccination is not considered good preventive medicine and in fact every
effort was made to convince people that there was no need for this and that immediate
vaccination was only necessary in certain cases. However, it was felt that an emergency
clinic should be opened so that those who were really concerned about themselves could
be offered vaccination. Great demands were made on the staff and they responded
nobly to the occasion for which I give my grateful thanks. I am grateful too to the
general practitioners who offered their services at a time when they were also overworked
due to demands for vaccination from their own patients.
Apart from this the Department continued to function reasonably satisfactorily,
and the arrival of Dr. Packer as my Deputy was very much welcomed.
Once again I feel that much progress was made in health education and if I only
mention certain aspects of it, it is because the section dealing with health education
which makes interesting reading gives much detail. I was particularly interested to
have the experience of broadcasting to school children on the B.B.C. home service during
Health Week in December. This programme went out each morning at 11.00 o'clock
and showed me what enormous possibilities there are for health education in sound
broadcasting. The preparation of the programmes was an exercise in condensing into
a quarter of an hour a good deal of material. The response from both children and
teachers who are invited to give their comments, was most encouraging. There were of
course a number of criticisms and I hope to " do better next time."
I have also been greatly encouraged during the year by the numbers of enquiries
about the activities of the department from many sources. Particularly the numbers of
enquiries about the Oxlow Lane Over Sixties Clinic and the Kingsley Hall Assessment
Centre. I have also been encouraged by the numbers of invitations I have received, all
of which it was impossible to accept, to speak about the social and medical aspects of old
age. This included an invitation to the Cite Universitaire of Paris where I was invited
to talk on the subject of "The Medical Importance of the Home Help Service in Gt.
Britain" which necessarily involved a good deal which related to the elderly in their
own homes. This talk created some interest and I have included a shortened version of
it at the end of this Annual Report.
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