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In 1964, the Ministry of Health initiated a number of procedures whereby long-stay immigrants,
be they Commonwealth or Alien, would be made aware of the facilities offered by the
National Health Service, would be encouraged to register with a doctor as soon as possible after
arrival and would be encouraged to have a chest X-ray, not only to exclude tuberculosis in themselves
but also in regard to their dependents.
Early in 1965, the practice was started of issuing to all long-stay immigrants referred to the
medical inspector a card, printed in six languages, including the commoner Asian languages,
encouraging them to register with a medical practitioner, so that he may arrange for them to
undergo chest X-ray, should he consider this advisable. Unfortunately, this measure has not proved
to be as successful as had been hoped. All too frequently, the immigrant from Asia is quite illiterate
and when eventually the Health Visitor checks up on the family, the card has either been destroyed
or is still to be found carefully tucked away in the ticket-folder.
Two other measures were also started in January. Firstly, all long-stay immigrants referred to
the Port Medical Inspectors were asked for their destination addresses, so that these could be
forwarded to the Medical Officer of Health with the request that he should try to persuade the
immigrant to act on the advice given on the card. Secondly, the names and destination addresses of
all wives and dependents, who had obtained entry certificates in their country of origin, were entered
on a tear-off slip in their passports, which was detached by the Immigration authorities and passed
to the medical inspectors for onward transmission to the appropriate Medical Officers of Health.
Both these measures produced their problems. In the first, it was, in the majority of cases, a
formidable task to extract a destination address from the immigrant and having obtained it, to have
much confidence, if it was indeed the address to which he was proceeding, that it was an accurate
address. Only too often, a frustrated Medical Officer of Health would return the notification to the
Airport, having been unable to trace the immigrant or having no knowledge of the particular address.
In the second, too often the destination addresses, completed on the tear-off slips in the country
of origin, were indecipherable, or if they were not, were inaccurate.
In all, 25,639 notifications were sent out to Medical Officers of Health in this way during the
year, and the clerical work involved was enormous.
MEDICAL INSPECTION OF ALIENS
Under the medical provisions of the Aliens Order 1953, 4,030 aliens were referred to the
medical inspectors by the immigration officers. In 1964, this figure was 2,971 and in 1963, it was
2,116. Of the 4,030, 3,215 came from Europe and 815 from other countries.
As before, the majority were referred for routine examination, either because they were in
possession of Ministry of Labour Permits or because they were intending to stay for more than six
months. In this category, there were 3,806 aliens.
204 aliens were visiting the United Kingdom to seek medical advice or treatment and on 129
occasions the medical inspectors issued Forms Port 12. During the year, the medical inspectors
recommended refusal of entry on medical grounds in regard to 39 aliens (compared with 17 in 1964).
In 21 cases, mental instability was the cause for refusal, pulmonary tuberculosis in 7, venereal disease
in 3, trachoma in 1; other conditions accounted for 7.
Smallpox
For the third consecutive year, no cases of smallpox were reported. The only suspected case was
reported from Ashford Hospital on July 19th in a woman passenger from India, who had been
admitted the previous day with rheumatoid arthritis and who was in transit to Belfast. Happily, this
proved not to be smallpox.
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