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2
H(1).
Public Health Department,
Council Offices,
Erith.
To the Chairman and Members of the
Erith Urban District Council.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my Annual Report on the
work carried out by the Health and School Medical Services
of the Council for the year 1937.
I am sure that it would be the wish of the Council to place
011 record our sorrow over the loss of our late Senior Sanitary
Inspector, Mr. Pearson.
The work of the Public Health Services of the Council
continues to increase in scope and value.
Mr. Pearson's illness and death, coming at a time when the
growth of the work on the Sanitary side of the Public Health
Department has got beyond the capacity of two Sanitary
Inspectors, threw a considerable strain on the rest of the Staff,
although as far as possible temporary Staff were secured.
While it is a great temptation to put on record extensions
of services that have recently been put into operation and are
in our minds at the moment, such as the Diphtheria Immunisation
Scheme, admission of Measles and Whooping Cough to the
Infectious Diseases Hospital, the Home Help Service, etc., it
must be remembered that this report deals with matters up to
December, 1937, and it will be realised that any such omissions
are due to this fact.
Notable extensions of services put into operation during
1937, however, are the Orthopaedic Scheme, and the extension
of the facilities offered by the School Medical Service to the preschool
child. In this way Minor ailment treatment, specialist
advice and treatment for such conditions as Orthopaedic defects,
eye defects, &c., can be obtained for the infant, thus bringing
these cases under treatment at the earliest possible moment and
avoiding the position that something might have been done if
they had been seen earlier.