View report page

Hospitals
I need add little to the remarks which I made in recent Annual
Reports relating to the hospital services available to the people
of Southgate. In the section which deals with care of the aged,
I particularly mention the difficulty which exists in providing the
necessary geriatric services. So far as other hospital admissions
are concerned, little difficulty exists, except that the admission to
hospital of pregnant women presents something more of a problem
than was the case a few years ago. This is not so much due to
the lack of beds, as to a lack of staff, a difficulty which has tended
to increase year by year.
Here again, the provision of adequate housing would go very
far towards solving this problem.
Laboratory Facilities
I would again record my appreciation and thanks to the staff
of the Central Public Health Laboratory, both at Colindale and at
Edmonton, for their unfailing assistance during the year. We did
not have to call upon the Laboratory to any great extent during
1961 owing to the absence of major outbreaks of infectious disease.
It is, however, very satisfactory to remember that the Public Health
Laboratory Service is available to us, and that any calls we make
upon it will be readily and sympathetically met.

Mortuary
The mortuary arrangements remain as set out fully in my
Report for 1946, with the addition mentioned in the 1960 Annual
Report that we now have a firm agreement with Prince of Wales's
Hospital to accept Southgate bodies.
In 1961, 148 bodies were sent to the mortuary at the Prince of
Wales's Hospital.
21