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49
The Hospitals Management Committee of the Regional Hospital
Board, however, decided that it was desirable for administrative
purposes that these arrangements should be discontinued and their
own officers should be administratively and clinically in control
of the two hospitals. This inevitably meant a break in the
Maternity and Child Welfare services which had been built up
largely on the basis of Perivale maternity hospital being available
for the difficult cases found at Ante Natal Clinics, and also its
officers specialising in maternity work were enabled to keep in
constant touch with the practical working of modern obstetric
practice. The new arrangement by which the hospital staffing
is carried out by two whole-time Resident Medical Officers of
Registrar grade and a part-time consultant must be compared
with the staffing under the Local Authority of a part-time
consultant available on call and for regular weekly visits, combined
with half-time of an Assistant Medical Officer of Health acting
as Resident Medical Officer, whilst other Assistant Medical Officers
of the Borough gave regular weekly service in order to relieve
the Resident.
The medical and administrative arrangements at Perivale
Maternity Hospital were most efficient and yet most economical.
The same remarks apply also to Clayponds Hospital, where
a similar system of medical staffing and of administrative supervision
were carried out. Here again a link with the Infectious
Disease work with the general public health administration was a
logical and efficient method of dealing with a local problem.
The transfer away from the Local Authority of Clayponds
Hospital has unfortunately led to a complete breakdown in the
arrangements for tonsillectomies for the school service. It had
been the practice for many years to undertake a small list of tonsil
and adenoid operations each week at this hospital. The consultant
employed by the Ealing Council had undertaken the work and this
arrangement was continued until 1950 when the Regional Hospital
Board took over the hospital and used it for orthopaedic purposes
rather than for infectious disease. This led, of course, to a piling
up of our waiting list of children needing tonsillectomy, and in
spite of our appeals to the local Hospital Management Committee
to find some way of helping us out of our dilemma there has been
no response to our request for action to be undertaken to deal
with our growing list of cases. A review has periodically been
made to try to get down the list as far as possible but in spite of
this over 600 children were on the waiting list in November, 1950,
and this number has increased since then. I regret that I must
report this but the necessity for speedy action to deal with this
problem is of great importance and I hope that the responsible
authorities will find a solution in the near future. Much avoidable
ill-health and distress is being caused by this breakdown of expensive
hospital services.