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3
HEALTH SERVICES.
The Annual Report for 1941 has to be prepared in accordance
with instructions from the Ministry of Health along the lines of
that for 1940, which means that it has to take the form merely
of a summary of the main features of the vital statistics and of the
health services of the Borough, but with the notable exception that
on grounds of national security, care has to be taken not to publish
complete tables of populations or quotations from the figures of the
Registrar General which may enable any substantial series of
populations to be reconstructed. For this reason the estimated
population of the Borough and the birth, death and other rates
calculated on the total population have been omitted.
All the public health and school medical services were
maintained unimpaired during the year though not without
difficulties.
The infant death-rate of 49 is higher than in 1940 though just
slightly higher than in 1939, but the maternal death-rate is lower,
in fact, it is the lowest in the last five years, and is notably lower
than the rate for England and Wales.
Only 48 cases of diphtheria and 166 of scarlet fever were
notified during the year. Measles and whooping cough, on the
other hand, were prevalent, 1,401 and 638 cases respectively being
notified. The deaths, however, from these diseases, 2 from measles
and 3 from whooping cough, give a low death-rate from each disease,
a good indication that the health of young children is not being
adversely affected by war-time conditions.
Aided by a national campaign of publicity local efforts to
secure the immunization of as many as possible children from one
year upwards have proved fairly successful though much greater
efforts must yet be made to obtain such a percentage of immunized
children as will materially affect the incidence of diphtheria.
There has been no evidence that the health of the children
is being adversely affected, in fact, the evidence, if one
may judge from observation of the children as a whole, is that the
nutrition and general well being of the children has improved.