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WANSTEAD & WOODFORD BOROUGH COUNCIL
TO THE MAYOR, ALDERMAN AND COUNCILLORS,
BOROUGH OF WANSTEAD AND WOODFORD
I have the honour to submit my twentieth and final Annual Report on
the Health Services of the Borough for the year 1964.
As the life of the Borough will be ending shortly it is necessary for
me to produce this report several months earlier than is customary and
before the Registrar General's statistics have been received. Consequently
the report is smaller than usual and does not contain statistical tables.
There have been no events of outstanding importance during 1964 and
incidence of infectious disease has remained low. Preparations for the
merger with the Borough of Ilford to form the London Borough of Redbridge
have proceeded at officer level and are now well advanced.
I have held the post of Medical Officer of Health for the Borough for
close on twenty years, having taken up duties in September, 1945 and I
have the distinction of being the first and only Medical Officer of Wanstead
and Woodford employed full-time in the Public Health Service, my predecessor
having been a general practitioner serving the Borough in a part-time
capacity.
Many changes have taken place over the years and I should like to take
this opportunity of recording some of these, but, before doing so, I would
mention one most serious health problem with which I was confronted in
March 1947.
Following one of the most severe winters on record and when we were
suffering from the after-effects of war, flooding of the reservoirs at the
Lea Bridge waterworks occurred. Owing to polluted water having entered
the mains it was necessary for the main water supply to the Borough to be
cut off for up to fourteen days. Warning notices were distributed to all
houses in the Borough Within twenty-four hours. An emergency water supply
delivered by tanks and lorries was brought into operation by the Metropolitan
Water Board. Frequent visits were paid to schools, restaurants,
cinemas etc., to ensure that the elementary principles of hygiene were
being observed. Fortunately no serious disease was reported.
In common with the whole of England and Wales poliomyelitis, a
disease hitherto little known in this Country, struck the Borough in the
Summer of 1947 and, thereafter to a greater or lesser extent, each year
for the next twelve years. Now, thanks to immunisation the incidence of
this disease is minimal.
In my early days here the effect of diphtheria immunisation had not
become manifest and a number of cases occurred. At present diphtheria is
a rarity.
Still more dramatic has been the decline in the incidence of Pulmonary
Tuberculosis. This has been caused by the use of new drugs which have a
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