View report page

GENERAL PROVISION OF HEALTH SERVICES
Hospitals.
The position in regard to the availability of hospital beds has
altered very little within the past twelve months. As Medical
Officer of Health for Southgate, I have stressed on numerous
occasions and in various quarters, the obvious and urgent need for
more geriatric beds to be made available for elderly folk in Southgate.
I am glad to be able to say that I have received the wholehearted
support of the various Committees of which I am a
member, and on which I have raised this most important point.
So long as the only general hospital in Southgate, i.e. Highlands
Hospital, caters for elderly people requiring hospitalisation who
are resident in South Islington, and so long as Southgate residents
in need of this type of accommodation have to rely on such beds
as are available in various surrounding hospitals, the position will
remain critical.
One must admit that the position, although very unsatisfactory,
does not allow of easy solution. It is at least something that the
matter has been thoroughly ventilated within the past year, that
the position has been very clearly made known to those concerned,
and that the need seems now to be appreciated. One can only
hope that sympathy will shortly be translated into practical help.
Until that comes about, general practitioners will still experience
the greatest difficulty in getting their elderly chronic sick into
hospital, even when this presents the only solution to a tragic
difficulty. I would not like it to be thought that these words are
written in a spirit of angry, unreasonable criticism. As I have
just remarked, we all know the difficulties, the almost insuperable
difficulties, under which our hospitals are working today. None
the less Southgate seems to be in a particularly unfavourable
position, at least so far as its old people are concerned. We do
not expect more than our fair share of beds ; Southgate may be a
prosperous, delightful borough, but we still have many old people
who are in need, from time to time, of a stay in hospital. The
Council can rest assured that I will continue to press this point
whenever and wherever possible, until conditions improve.
So far as Hospital provision for other types of cases is concerned—infectious
diseases, maternity cases and acute illnesses—
the position is much more satisfactory. Both South Lodge Hospital
and Coppets Wood Hospital, to which cases of infectious disease
occurring in Southgate are admitted, are most co-operative. So
far as I can ascertain from general practitioners, there is seldom,
if ever, difficulty in securing the prompt admission of a case of
infectious disease to hospital, if and when this is required.
27