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3
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Borough of Ealing.
I have the honour to present to you the Annual Report for the
year 1945 on the work of the Health Department, the thirty-first
that I have presented.
I wish to direct your attention to the main features in it.
The general death-rate remains low, 10.1 per 1,000 of population,
the birth-rate of 17.2 is less than that for 1943 or 1944 hut is higher
than in the 20 pre-war years and the infant death-rate of 40 per
1,000 births is equal to the lowest recorded in the previous ten years
and compares well with the rate for the whole of England and
Wales of 46 per 1,000 births. But the most remarkable feature
is the entire absence of maternal deaths during the year. It
may reasonably be claimed that this surprising absence of maternal
mortality is the direct result of the well developed maternal
health service which you have always so heartily encouraged.
As to infectious diseases the number of cases of diphtheria
has remained low with only one death ; scarlet fever though the
number of cases was higher than in the previous year was very
mild in character, there being no deaths in the 340 cases that
occurred.
With the cessation of hostilities the ambulance service had
to be developed anew with the disbandment of the Civil Defence
Services and it came within the province of the public health
department. In the report the figures relating to the use made
of the ambulances indicate what a valuable service it has become.
In April of 1945 the School Health Service came within the
general control of the Middlesex County Council but the change
has meant little to the School Health Service which has been
previously administered by the Council as the local education
authority. The records of medical inspection and treatment
in the report bear out this statement.
I have the honour to be
Your obedient Servant,
Medical Officer of Health.
Town Hall,
Ealing, W.5.
October, 1946.