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58
extended facilities and accommodation. They should have
consulting rooms for a medical officer who should be available
for all school medicai work, and child welfare and maternity
clinics of their area and should have properly equipped facilities
for dental treatment and such other treatments as, for example,
ultra violet light. With the increased development of the area
the clinic built in 1938 at the Bedonwell School is now far too
small, and due to the lack of a third clinic in the town several
sessions are badly overcrowded. In the Old Town Ward, that
is in Erith proper, I suggest that a Public Health Centre of
a larger type with greater increased facilities should be available
at, or adjacent to the borough's new town hall which, being
at the transport centre of the town and contiguous to other
developing areas should cater for the specialist requirements of
the services.
It should house the orthopaedic and ophthalmic clinics,
the ear nose and throat specialist, the diabetic clinic, the main
foot clinic of the borough, the specialist ante-natal clinic, and
if possible, the chest clinic of the town. It should also have
facilities for a child welfare clinic and school clinic for this
area. In the building should be a pathological laboratory where
bacteriological investigations could be made and I see no reason
why the building should not incorporate, or have adjacent to
it, a modern mortuary where post mortem examinations could
be properly held, and also an ambulance centre.
It should have a large hall with a platform which could be
used for public health lectures and demonstrations, and it may
well hold a dispensary where any medical prescription may be
ordered, and in conjunction with the chest clinic an X-ray room
which need not be on elaborate lines or hold too expensive
equipment. A light treatment room would be an additional
advantage and the dental rooms could well be housed on the
first floor.
The garages of the Public Health Ambulance Service should
be adjacent and the relief ambulance driver could well be the
resident caretaker of the Centre.
The technician of the pathological laboratory would be
the assistant for the post mortem examinations.
One wing of the ground floor or the first floor of the
building would house the present public health department and
extra committee rooms might well be provided for the use of
various sub-committees and for interviews. Finally I would
postulate here that architects versed in hospital and clinic
buildings should submit designs for the lay-out, and that the
design should be such that it is capable of easy extension and