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49
PARK VIEW THERAPEUTIC CLUB
This club continues to function under the watchful eye of the staff of the Mental Health
Section.
Social occasions, dances, theatre outings, whist drives and gramophone sessions are
arranged and the number attending continues round about twenty-five each meeting.
Mr. Steadman the main prop to this small community whose individual members strive so
hard to win back a place in the world, retired on 6th October 1958 after ten years' service to
the Health Department. He was a man of sterling quality, full of compassion and humility and
in his going, the mental sufferers of East Ham have lost a stalwart friend and the Mental Health
Department a loyal colleague. Everyone will wish him well in his much earned retirement from
Local Authority service.
SECTIONS 28 AND 51-MENTAL HEALTH SERVICE
In the two years under review the Duly Authorised Officers have won golden opinions for
themselves and for the Mental Health Service of East Ham. They have stood as bulwarks of support
to those families in which breakdown threatened. They have served as models of co-operative
effort in their liaison with the general practitioners and the hospitals and the other Public
Health services.
They have not spared themselves in affording assistance to the Mental Health Occupation
Centre when needed-in helping the staff during difficult periods and staff sickness - accompanying
the patients on outings and annual holidays and materially assisting on 'open day'.
Their knowledge of the difficulties and ramifications of family life in those households
in which defectives or mental sufferers reside in unrivalled and their meticulous records of the
greatest assistance to me in my work with this section of the community.
Few boroughs to my knowledge have so personal and humanitarian a Mental Welfare service
and it would be invidious to select any of the officers by name for special mention. They have
worked as a splendid team and I am sure they will be glad to know of the thanks of the community,
the Health Committee and the doctors, in appreciation of their untiring effort.
The new legislation foreshadowed by the Mental Health Act 1959 may have a considerable
effect on the work of these officers but we can rest assured they will carry out the greater
community effort required of them with patience, zeal and enthusiasm.