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6
To the Chairman and Members of the
Orpington Urban District Council.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
If Health is wealth, then we should be justified in referring to
"Opulent Orpington" where good health seems to abound. One
must admit that this may appear a rather startling statement with
which to commence an annual report, but I do feel that there are
good grounds for making it, and hope that what follows will help
to substantiate this contention.
In looking through this report, one of the first things that
strikes me is the consistently low level of sickness experienced in
the district, judged by the weekly returns received from the Ministry
of National Insurance, of the issue of certificates of incapacity for
work. This I feel, is a very good guide, for with an unhealthy
population there are bound to be a fairly large proportion of people
suffering from recurrent conditions such as bronchitis, asthma and
duodenal ulcers which would tend to a high sickness rate. Turning
to another form of illness, that is the infectious diseases which of
course mainly affect children, we find that the number of these
conditions notified was only a little more than one third of those
for the previous year. This again is a pointer, but must be
treated with reserve as there are conditions such as measles which
normally only affect the child population heavily in alternate years.
If we now take the opportunity of comparing some facts
affecting the whole country with those pertaining locally, the
following favourable comparisons emerge; the birth rate for
England and Wales is 15.7, but for Orpington it reaches the level
of 17.1, on the other hand the death rate for the country is 11.7,
but to substantiate my argument Orpington's is only 9.9; in
addition to this, while the country as a whole has an infant
mortality rate of 23.8, ours is only 20.51, and our Maternal
Mortality is nil.
I have extracted (and I hope fairly painlessly !) some of the
main facts from the vital statistics and feel that they must be
considered very encouraging. Having given a number of facts
which it is felt justify my opening statement, it would now seem
appropriate to examine some of the possible factors contributing
to this happy state of affairs.
The Urban district itself has a large acrcage and enjoys the
benefits of a number of open spaces, which to my mind are very
important to both the physical and mental well-being of any
community. Again the progress that has been made with housing,
although this problem has not been resolved completely, must make