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8
COUNTY BOROUGH OF EAST HAM
Public Health Department.
Town Hall Annexe.
East Ham. E.6.
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 the Annual Report on the health of the
borough for the year 1952, and In so soing reflect that despite of financial
stringency, the Council In their wisdom have pursued several measures which
in their full medico-soclal application must raise up the shield of preventive
medicine over an increasing number of our people.
The Registrar. General's estimate of the population at the 30th June,
1952, stands at 120,000, pointing a further decline of 500 over the year,
which coupled with 123 fewer registered live births and a drop in the birth
rate to 12.7 leads one earnestly to contemplate the changing structure and
dwindling potential of our community.
The death rate has fallen a little to 11.4 and stands a fraction above
the corrected death rate for England and Wales which is given as 11.3 per
1,000 of the population, and attention is drawn to the age group distribution
of our people with 12,400 persons over the age of 65 years.
Further more detailed statistical analysis can be pursued elsewhere in
the report, but here I would pause to look back on the observations made in
1951 and ask. what has been done to encourage young people to stay In the
borough and raise up sturdy families to strengthen and vitalize the fabric
of our society.
It would appear the time has come to add selected newly wed couples to
the priority housing lists, and I believe this relief would toughen the moral
fibre which tends to sag a little in the community, and restore the family
unit once more to its focal point in good living.
An account of the services provided under the National Health Service
Act may be read in the body of the report. Here it will suffice to draw
attention to a new custom and the decline of a tradition.
Hospitals continue to serve a great need in the life of the borough,
but greater efforts should be made to preserve our ag-long habit of home
confinement.
Housing conditions, although steadily improving, do not readily allow
many women to be confined at home, and there are other circumstances which
prompt expectant mothers to ask. for hospital accouchement.
In this way the old tradition of home confinement gradually is being
thrust aside and the homely birth and fireside nurture replaced by the
mechanistic ritual and chromium plated crib of the "sterile white" maternity
hospital. No longer is a child born to a newly wed couple the consummation
of their hopes and longings, an immediate and imperative stimulus in their
home to renewed mutual devotion and upsurging effort to create a stronger
and better family life.
Instead, Mrs. Newlywed is delivered in hospital of a baby labelled to
ensure he is properly claimed to suckle his mother, made aware of his presence
at appropriate intervals by the officiating nurse.