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29
GENERAL PROVISION OF HEALTH SERVICES IN
THE AREA.
STAFF OF THE PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT.
As suggested by the Minister of Health in Circular 1,119, the
staff engaged in the health service of the Borough Council has been
enumerated at the beginning of this Report (see page 8).
PROFESSIONAL NURSING IN THE HOME.
(a) General.— This is carried out in the Borough by the Hackney
District Nursing Association, which employs a staff, including the
Superintendent, of 22 trained nurses who attend at the houses of the
sick, at such times as are necessary, to carry out skilled nursing.
(b) Infectious Diseases.— Arrangements have existed for some
years between the Association and the Borough Council for nursing
selected cases of infectious disease, the agreed working being as
follows:—
Nursing assistance is granted under the maternity and child
welfare scheme in cases of ophthalmia neonatorum, puerperal fever,
measles and German measles, whooping cough, epidemic diarrhoea
and polio-myelitis.
A grant towards the expenditure under this head is made by
the Ministry of Health, and is included in the General Exchequer
Contribution under the Local Government Act, 1929.
Except as regards ophthalmia neonatorum and puerperal fever,
no attempt is made to grant routine nursing assistance to any but
emergency cases; by emergency I mean that only where representation
is made by a member of my staff or by medical practitioners
that nursing is an urgent necessity is this assistance granted; the
scheme does not permit the granting of routine nursing assistance.
Of these diseases ophthalmia neonatorum, puerperal fever and
polio-myelitis only are notifiable in this Borough.
This assistance is also granted under the various regulations,
etc., to cases of tuberculosis, pneumonia, dysentery, etc., and here
again nursing assistance is only granted to those most urgently
requiring this assistance.
The agreed amount to be paid to the Nursing Association is
Is. 3d. per visit.