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MEDICAL OFFICER'S ANNUAL REPORT
Tel: HAYes 1901. Public Health Department,
Springfield rouse,
Hayes End Road,
Hayes, Middlesex.
June, 1964.
To the Chairman and Members of the Council.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
As this report is being prepared the Council of the new
Borough of Hillingdon has been elected and as Hayes and Parlington
prepares to enter a new phase in company with its neighbours
Ruislip Northwood, Uxbridge and Yiewsley & Best Drayton, I
thought it would be interesting to look back at the reports of
previous Medical Officers of Health. The first is 1905 when
Hayes was split off from Uxbridge and became a separate entity.
There was a population of 3,000, a crude birth rate of 32.6,
and a crude death rate of 12.6. 80% of the dwellings had a mains
water supply but there was no main drainage. The Medical Officer
commented that the demand for cottage accommodation was much
greater than the supply- a familiar cry which has been repeated
through the years. In 1910 many cottages were closed because
they were insanitary and the Council erected 38 dwellings, but
9 years later a scheme for the erection of 2,078 houses was
started. By now there were 1,086 occupied houses in the district
and an estimated population of 5,750. The first maternity and
infant welfare centre had been opened, there was a district
nurse and a lady health visitor, but the infant mortality rate
was 111. 1/1,000 births.
In 1921 there is a record of 3 houses being built by private
enterprise.
In 1922 the Medical Officer was deploring the number of
deaths from cancer and pulmonary tuberculosis. He also made a
plea for routine vaccination against smallpox, commenting or
the rush for vaccination when an outbreak occurred in London
that year- people who had refused it earlier were fighting to
get into the centres, when supplies of lymph were running low.
He would have felt quite at home 40 years later when history
repeated itself! Improved amenities in 1922 included an incinerator
for disposing of the district's refuse (he viewed tippins
ivith horror) and the provision of an operating theatre at Payes
Cottage Hospital which had 6 beds.
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