View report page

11
Non-Pulmonary:—
M.Ad. F.Ad. M.Ch. F.Ch.
- 2 1 1
During the last 6 months of 1947, 37 patients awaiting
admission to Sanatoria had active treatment initiated in
hospital and carried on at home under supervision of the
Tuberculosis Officer. This method was found to be most
satisfactory where home conditions enabled the patients
to have adequate rest, but unsatisfactory housing conditions
prevented the best use being made of this system.
The number of cases in which the housing conditions of
patients were unsatisfactory was over 100. In the worst
of these, patients with a positive sputum were living in
cramped conditions with young children, and in these
cases rehousing was usually effected quickly; but many
cases remained in which conditions, although less acute,
were far from good, and militated against the effectiveness
of treatment.
The long waiting period before admission to sanatorium
placed a great strain on the patient and his
relatives, and this strain was still more severe in cases
where seriously ill and untreatable patients had to be
nursed at home because of the shortage of hospital beds—
in such cases the services of the District Nurses were
called on.
Home Helps were almost always required in those
cases where the patient was a married woman. They were
often hard to find, and when this happened, families were
involved in serious difficulties, and the patient was unable
to rest properly.
In general, it may be said that the prevalent shortages
and hardships of post-war life made the planning of
satisfactory treatment for the tuberculosis very much
harder."