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To His Worship the Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors
of the County Borough of East Ham.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I beg to submit the Annual Report on the state of the Public
Health and the record of sanitary work carried out during the
year 1927, together with my Report as School Medical Officer
in accordance with the Regulations of the Ministry of Health and
the Board of Education.
The Borough still occupies a very satisfactory position in
regard to mortality statistics—the death.rate being as low as
9'7, and infant mortality 53.
There has been a considerable increase in the number of cases
of infectious disease notified—Scarlet Fever 798 as against 350
in 1926, and 221 in 1925; Diphtheria 464 as against 337 in 1926,
and 246 in 1925. This is largely accounted for by the overcrowding
in the Borough, difficulty in isolating the cases, and insufficient
accommodation at the Isolation Hospital, although the
majority of cases of Diphtheria were admitted.
As far back as 1914 I called the attention of the Council to
the inadequate accommodation, both for patients and staff, at the
Isolation Hospital, and plans were prepared and submitted to the
Ministry of Health, but owing to the outbreak of War they were
not proceeded with.
The following extract from a letter received from the Ministry
of Health in November, 1922, also bears upon the question. “ It
is clear that much of the accommodation at the hospital is of a
temporary nature, and some of it, e.g., the military huts used for
convalescent scarlet fever and diphtheria cases, ill.suited for the
purpose, and the Minister accordingly suggests that the Council
should prepare a complete scheme for the reconstruction of the
Hospital, to be carried out in stages as circumstances permit.”