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28
REPORT ON THE WORK OF THE TUBERCULOSIS
DISPENSARY.
Memo. 37/T issued by the Ministry of Health, continues to
be of considerable value as a guidance for administrative work.
The number of attendances shown in Table 1, viz., 3,120
this year compares very favourably with the number last year,
viz., 2,398, showing quite conclusively that increased use is being
made of the Dispensary.
The various functions of the Dispensary, viz :—
(a) To receive notifications.
(b) To establish diagnosis.
(c) To decide the form of treatment necessary.
(d) To supervise domiciliary treatment carried out by
private practitioners.
(e) To keep in touch with general practitioners.
(/) As a general bureau of information.
continue to be used to the fullest advantage.
The value of the Dispensary as a consultation centre for diagnosis
is being recognised by both practitioners and patients, and
this would increase were in not, as explained in a succeeding
paragraph, on p. 31, for the supposed stigma attaching amongst
a large section of the population to the term " Tuberculosis."
For the mere fact that a patient is being sent to a
Tuberculosis Dispensary does not by any means infer
that they are going to be labelled tuberculous, for during the
year we have encountered many affections, such as nasopharyngeal
sepsis, bronchitis, cancer of the lung, bronchiectasis,
dust diseases affecting the lung, abscess of lung, various
types of heart disease with secondary changes in the lungs, and
general systematic diseases such as exophthalmic goitre, whose
symptoms have resembled those of pulmonary tuberculosis but
which, after observation and careful routine examinations,
have proved to be non-tuberculous. These patients have all had
coughs with sputum, and in all such cases the general practitioners
concerned have been communicated with and the cause of the
cough, etc., indicated, so that the sufferers can be directed to the
appropriate channels for treatment.