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8
COUNTY BOROUGH OF EAST HAM
Public Health Department,
Town Hall Annexe, E.6.
July, 1951.
TO THE WORSHIPFUL THE MAYOR, THE ALDERMEN AND COUNCILLORS OF THE COUNTY
BOROUGH OF EAST HAM,
MR, MAYOR, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
I have the honour to present for the first time since my appointment
as Medical Officer of Health and School Medical Officer, the Annual
Report on the health of the Borough. In so doing, I reflect on the changed
and changing nature of the office of Medical Officer of Health since the
enactment of the National Health Service Act and comment on certain trend?
in the application of medical knowledge to the practice of individual and
community care.
The health of the community has remained good, no serious epidemic
has occurred, and in no disease does our morbidity or mortality rate exceed
the average of 126 County Boroughs and Great Towns including London.
Details of the various service may be found in the body of the report
Together with epidemiological and morbidity statistics,,
Statistical analysis shows no change in the population, 121,900,
with a small decline in the number of births and steady increase in the
survival rate for males and females over the age of 60 years. This
survival of an aging population follows the trend noted in most parts of the
country, and whether the care of the aged is regarded as a family responsibility
or a community problem it is our duty to ensure that every aged person
receives a measure of care, comfort and tranquility.
The steady decline in the birth rate must be viewed with some
concern, for better education and benevolent legislation in a "Welfare State"
have created as never before conditions eminently suited to the rearing of
healthy children. High taxation can be borne, and the shadow of war will
pass away, but the immediate need to house young married couples Is so
pressing that in my opinion we should revise our methods of allocation of new
dwellings,
Our present practice is sowing the seeds of mental, illness which
will reap for our people a distressful harvest of neurotics and psychotics
to swell the hordes that must be treated in mental hospitals and burden the
national effort in the industrial field.
The number of persons suffering mental illness shows a small
increase, but this small Increase is of significance considered side by
side with the shorter stay of cases in hospital and the greatly improved
methods of treatment now available.
Similarly, the increase in the number of mental defectives points
to the national and universal need to pursue with increased vigour the
causes of mental deficiency and to root out those social and biological
evils which are known to hold back family and community well-being.
A start has already been made in the application of the knowledge
gained of the relation of German Measles, and the Rhesus Factor In the
mother, to the production of mental defectiveness in her child. But a
greater surge forward is needed to acquire the scientific information which
points the chemical, physical, biological and environmental reasons for the