View report page

3
INTRODUCTION.
This is my 20th Annual Report to you as your Medical
Crticer of Health and School Medical Officer, and the sixth
report during the war years.
In comparing this report with previous years, and especially
the statistics, due consideration must be given to the fact that
1944 was in Bromley a year of intensive enemy activity, causing
Bromley to evacuate officially some 3,000 of its children. In
spite of this, the clinics and centres, the midwifery service, the
child welfare service and public health activity continued their
everyday functions, and the general public continued to use
the department at the pre-war level. This is a pleasing indication,
not only of the value and trust the public place upon these
services, but also of the stoicism of the people of Bromley who,
for six long years, played their great part in the victory which
is ours to-day. From the departmental viewpoint, with the
tar-time changes and shortage of staff, and the extra duties
Placed upon the department in its war activities, the task has
indeed been heavy, and one that could not have been successfully
accomplished but for the application and untiring effort
of the professional and clerical staffs. All praise is due to them,
and I take this opportunity to bring it to your notice.
While I have no absolute figures of sickness among the
public during these tiring years, one has the belief that, in spite
°f war-time environment, the sickness rate has not been unduly
increased. We have the statistical fact that in the case of school
children the physique has actually improved. The infectious
diseases rates have continued below the average, the Birth rate
has increased and the Death rate remained low. Within the
report I have enlarged upon infant death rates, indicating that
much research and valuable work remains to be done, especially
'"that period of the beginning of life. There is a need within
'he deoartment of a skilled statistician, not only in the correlation
of facts but in the sorting of essential and non-essential
research into the causation of these early deaths.
For the past 20 years we have concentrated upon the improvement
of the health and environment of the individual,
with. I believe, some success, but with changing thought more
and more important comes the need to treat the family as the
unit, for it is upon the inter-reactions within the family that
the welfare of the individual depends. The building up of a
family record has become of prime importance within the Health
Apartment, and a start has been made in this direction. I