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11
it is also of paramount importance if initiative in development
is to be maintained that essential delegation to local
administration be granted. Whether or not we are to incorporate
the social functions, such as Community Centres, into the Health
Centres, is a matter for careful consideration.
It is pleasing to note that during past years the public are
making an increasing use of the Public Health Services. At
the same time it must be recorded that there is a tendency to
place upon the Local Authority responsibility for many small
matters which might well have been corrected by a little more
self-help, or made less evident had the neighbourly spirit so
strongly exercised during the war years been carried forward
into the years of so called peace.
Your sanitary inspectors, in spite of shortage of staff, have
carried out their duties with increasing skill and activity. The
statistics submitted by Mr. G. R. Woods, Chief Sanitary
Inspector, are worthy of close study, if one is to obtain a full
knowledge of the importancs and extensive and skilled nature
of their work.
The most acute problem, whether taken from the social or
from t e health aspect, is the housing problem. I have reported
on this matter in my previous reports and there is nothing I
can usefully add I can but repeat that in spite of 318 prefabricated
houses and 28 permanent houses erected during the
year, only the fringe of the problem has been touched; the
living conditions of a very large section of the public are
deplorable, and unless corrected within the near future, will
have a very serious effect on the welfare and health of the
People. One house, one family must be the aim of all those
interested in the rehousing of the people for it is upon the
establishment of the home, in its real sense, that security of
happiness and health is dependent.
I would thank the Committees for their help and their encouragement
and to the staff and colleagues I extend my
Personal appreciation of their loyalty and application to their
work, and not the least to Mr. H. E. Lawley, the Chief Clerk,
who through his long years of service and experience has played
an essential part in the compilation of these yearly reports.
I am.
Your obedient servant,
K. E. TAPPER,
Medical Officer of Health.