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4
To the CHAIRMAN and MEMBERS of the
ORPINGTON URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
This report covers the year 1950 and is my Third Annual
Report to you and the seventeenth since Orpington became an
Urban District in 1934.
The. report follows closely the form adopted for previous
years and I am indebted to the staff of the Orpington Health
Department for the collation of facts and statistics. The
Department can look back upon a year of successful and progressive
work.
The vital statistics continue to show improvement, an
improvement which began many years ago with the upgrading
of the social conditions of the population. It has been more than
once authoritatively stated that improvement of vital statistics
occurs when there is continuous full employment in the country,
when the family purse is full, and when the food supply to the
family is adequate. It is also beyond doubt that the Public
Health and Medical Services are necessary to maintain this
improvement and, by exercising control of infectious diseases
and epidemics, to prevent any retrogression.
There has been no widespread illness during 1950 sufficiently
severe to leave behind a lowered standard of health. There are
no available measurements to indicate whether there has been
any permanent raising or lowering of morale of the people, but
there does appear to be an increase in the number of cases
referred to psychological consultation clinics.
An increasing number of houses in Orpington are becoming
structurally outworn, requiring urgent care and attention ; many,
built fifty years ago, were built without the provision of modern
facilities; many are shared by two or more families, thus
affecting the happiness of real home life. New houses are barely
meeting the needs of the natural increase of population, i.e..
excess of births over deaths. With every new housing policy must
go a policy for the maintenance of fitness of existing houses. It is
incumbent upon Local Authorities, as far as they are permitted,
so see that each and every family has a house of its own, free
of defects, with all the services that make a home, and that the
younger generation are not scarred physically or mentally as a
result of bad environment. It is not good government to allow,
without protest, young children to be brought up in homes where
cold and dampness are evident,