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unsatisfactory conduct. Eight patients on licence were discharged
from the Orders detaining them under the Mental Deficiency
Acts.
At the end of the year 31 defectives (18 males and 13
females) remained on licence.
SOUTH OCKENDON COLONY
Report by Medical Superintendent—
Dr. Bernard Matheson, M.B., Ch.B., D.P.M.
On the 1st January, 1946, there were 423 patients subject
to the provisions of the Mental Deficiency Acts on the register,
viz., 209 men, 158 women, 33 boys and 23 girls. During the
year 38 patients were admitted—11 men, 7 women, 7 boys and
13 girls—while 6 men and 3 women died and 6 men and 5
women were discharged, leaving a total of 441—215 men, 163
women, 40 boys and 23 girls—remaining on 31st December,
1946.
In addition to these patients there were 126 evacuees—18
men and boys and 108 women—being cared for in the Colony.
During the year no evacuee patient was admitted, while 3 boys
died and 3 (1 boy, 2 women) were discharged, leaving a total of
120—7 men, 96 women, 7 boys, 10 girls—remaining on 31st
December, 1946.
There was a total of 561 patients—269 men and boys and
292 women and girls—remaining in the Colony on 31st December,
1946.
ACCOMMODATION. The Colony has been overcrowded
during the whole of the year, and the absence of school buildings
still causes difficulty. The question of providing a hospital
block, school and accommodation for the lowest grade of
patients has received consideration, and a scheme which has
been placed before the Ministry of Health has received sympathetic
and favourable consideration. It is fervently hoped that
sanction to proceed with the buildings will be secured in the
near future, for the lack of these facilities is a definite handicap
to the efficient and smooth running of the Colony.
The present accommodation consists of nine villas—three
of 60 beds each, allocated to adult males, two of 50 beds each
to children, and four to adult women, housing for practical purposes
60 patients each, although a certificate for that number
has not yet been approved by the Board of Control, who are
awaiting the completion of certain alterations in one or two of
the villas. Patients are graded in the villas, as far as possible,
according to the degree of defect present: thus the three villas
lor male defectives house low-grade, medium-grade and highgrade
patients respectively. A similar system obtains in the
section for women, except that two of the villas are filled chiefly
by uncertified patients originally evacuated from Forest Gate
Hospital or from home.
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