View report page

95
Total attendances 16,542
„ new cases 5,885
„ X-rays 13,502
„ screening 1,418
Miniature camera 5,314
New notifications 81
(Walthamstow only)
Schoolchildren examined for the first time
Boys Girls
Referred by School Medical Officer 23 16
„ „ Private Practitioners 81 90
Examined as Contacts 43 36
"There is a slight fall in the total attendances which I
think is chiefly accounted for by the drop in the number of
cases attending for refills to artificial pneumothorax or pneumoperitoneum.
There has, in fact, again been some increase in
the total number of new cases referred for investigation.
There has also been a slight increase in the number of new
cases of tuberculosis actually notified. This is the third year
in succession where there has been such an increase, though it
is not of any great extent.
"It will be seen that the work of the Clinic generally
continues to be very considerable and shows no real sign of
falling off. The dramatic drop in the tuberculosis death rate
does tend to suggest to some people that much less now needs
to be done over the field of tuberculosis work as a whole. This
is certainly not so as regards the Chest Clinic and both in
the field of tuberculosis and the wider field of chest diseases
generally, a great deal of work is being done.
"For instance, a total number of 48 cases of cancer of the
lung was diagnosed at the Clinic during the year: this is a
little more than half the total notifications of tuberculosis.
At the beginning of 1957 it was estimated that there
were in Walthamstow 8.4 cases of tuberculosis per 1,000 population."
Walthamstow and Chingford Association of Tuberculosis
Care Helpers.
Miss A. Woolgar, Honorary Secretary of the Walthamstow and
Chingford Association of Tuberculosis Care Helpers, contributes the
following report:—
"The year has not been an easy one from any point of