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Municipal Health Offices,
Romford Road,
West Ham, E.15.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the
County Borough of West Ham.
Mr. Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors,
I have the honour to present to you my Annual Report for
the year 1933, which is set out in accordance with a circular from
the Ministry of Health dated October '2nd, 1933.
Your health services continue to extend, and now embrace
within their ambit matters at one time unthought of in connection
with public health. It is necessary to emphasize the fact that
though the primary aim of the Department is to maintain health,
adequate provision must be made for the treatment of illness.
The vital statistics for the year are most satisfactory. The
details are set out on page 19. The extremely low maternal
death rate (,1.8 per 1,000) is particularly gratifying, and tends to
show that if a big industrial area such as this can produce so
low a rate, a similar rate should not be impracticable for the
country as a whole. The infant mortality rate is also lower than
that of the aggregate of the 118 Great Towns. I feel doubtful,
however, whether this low infantile mortality rate can continue if
the number of children born of needy and of improvident parents
continues to preponderate.
Great strides have been made in regard to housing and slum
clearance, and this highly important phase of public health is
still being rigorously carricd on. (See pages 91-95).
An extensive outbreak of scarlet fever was epidemic during
the year, and the numbers suffering from this disease were so
great as to necessitate the acquisition of many extra beds at the
London Fever Hospital. Your Fever Hospital was unable to cope
with patients needing admission there, due to the fact that Harold
Wood Hospital, with accommodation for one hundred and twenty
scarlet fever cases, had been transferred in the early part of the
year to the Public Assistance Committee to house chronic sick
adults.
The very difficult and, in this particular area, somewhat
abstruse problem of providing sufficient and suitable accommodation
for the sick is still claiming the attention of the appropriate
Committees. A scheme for the erection of a hospital with five
hundred beds is at present before the Ministry of Health for their
consideration. Permission to extend the Mental Deficiency
Colony at South Ockendon is awaiting the decision of the Board
of Control.
B 5