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41
Co-operation with Hospitals.
For some years it has been the practice for members of the health
visiting staff to visit the wards of the two hospitals in the Area for a
half-day each week.
One of the health visitors who has been visiting the modern and
up-to-date geriatric unit of Langthorne Hospital reports as follows : —
"Contact with the staff at Langthorne Hospital is most helpful
inasmuch as it enables one to see their attitude towards helping
the aged, and it is worthy of notice that great importance is attached
to keeping the patient mobile. The system of relieving patients'
relatives by taking the patient into hospital for six weeks and then
sending them home for six weeks appears to have worked very well.
In one case this has appertained happily for three years. Each week
the Almoner gave me a list of discharges with a note of the domiciliary
services that the doctor had recommended. These were then
passed on to the district health visitor and special reports on home
conditions were dealt with in a similar fashion."
This co-relation between the hospital services and the local health
authority staff is a practical form of co-operation which has a tot to
commend it.
Home Nursing.
It is pleasing to recall the co-operation that exists between the staff
of this Department and The Lady Rayleigh Training Home. As I have
stated before in this Report, the home nurses and domestic helps do
much to enable aged persons to be cared for at home, thus relieving
pressure on hospital beds and at the same time dealing with this acute
problem in the most economical way.
Vaccination and Immunisation.
The vaccination of infants against smallpox continues to be carried
out at the Child Welfare Centres, and it is pleasing to be able to record
that there is almost a 100% increase in the number of children under
the age of six months who were vaccinated as compared with the previous
year.
The figures for diphtheria immunisation also show a 100% increase
in respect of primary immunisations and the figure for "booster" doses
is 1892 as compared with 214 in 1955.
Immunisation against whooping cough shows only a slight increase
over the previous year.
In January, 1956, the Ministry's scheme for protection against poliomyelitis
was announced. Registrations were invited in respect of children
born in the years 1947-1954 inclusive. 3,371 registrations were received
representing over 27% of the eligible children. The vaccinations were
commenced in May and before the end of the year 347 children had
the full course of vaccination and 21 children the first injection only.