View report page

ANNUAL REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
FOR 1960
Town Hall,
Anerley Road, S.E.20
31st July, 1961
To the Chairman and Members of the Urban District Council of Penge.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my Annual Report for the year ended
31st December, 1960.
During the year Penge completed sixty years as an Urban District, and
almost simultaneously the Boundary Commission recommended the amalgamation
of Penge with Beckenham and Bromley as a single unit of local government.
On this it is not within my province to comment.
As this is the twenty-first Annual Report which I have presented I may,
perhaps, be permitted to refer back to one of the earlier years on the subject
of diphtheria immunisation. I belong to a generation of doctors to whom,
in our younger days, diphtheria was an ever present, worrying and often fatal
disease, and it was therefore a pleasure when, in March, 1941, I conducted
the first immunisation session held under the auspices of the Penge Council.
Some six years later, in spite of the difficult conditions of the war years, it
was possible for me to report that no case of diphtheria had occurred in the
district. This I consider a convincing proof of the value of immunisation
against the disease, and this freedom from cases in the district has now lasted
for thirteen years. At times one reads in the National Press of outbreaks
in various parts of the country, some of them quite close to Penge, and yet
there still remain in the district several hundred children whose parents have
not availed themselves of the opportunity to give them protection. Since
the early days other diseases have been added to the list where immunisation
can be afforded either by their own doctors or through the clinics provided
by the Kent County Council. These are whooping cough, tetanus and poliomyelitis.
Here again many children are unprotected and in the case of
poliomyelitis the response from the age group 15-40 years has been disappointing.
The disease can strike at any time and anywhere and therefore the need
for immunisation is real and urgent.
The Vital Statistics call for little comment, showing as they do little
change and conforming closely to the national figures. Again the birth rate is
higher than the average and there is a disturbing increase in the number of
illegitimate births. Many reasons can be given for this increase, but I feel
that basically it reflects the lowering of moral values which is so much in
evidence everywhere today.