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6
Metropolitan Borough of Hackney
REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
FOR THE YEAR 1950
Public Health Department,
Town Hall, Hackney, E.8.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Metropolitan Borough of Hackney.
This Report on the health of the Borough in 1950 has again
been prepared in the form requested during the war and subsequent
years by the Ministry of Health but as my permanent appointment
as Medical Officer of Health for the Borough terminates in May,
1951, I have taken the opportunity in presenting this, my
thirtieth and last Annual Report, to include under the various
headings some notes on the difficulties which have been experienced
and the changes which have occurred during my term of office.
I have done so in the belief that it will be of interest to members
of the Council to review the progress which has been made in all
sections of the work of the Public Health Department although
the advance for which we all hoped was in many directions retarded
by the conditions arising during and after the 1939-45 war. Lack
of space has compelled me to omit much which I would have wished
to include, but I think the information which has been included
will give at least some indication of what has been accomplished.
The war years were anxious enough and one never knew what
might be the next happening but no one, as far as I know, ever
doubted the outcome; on the other hand no one ever had the slightest
idea of the frightful difficulties that were to follow the war
years as the result of war damage. There were, among other trials
which had to be faced, licensing, which operated in such a way
as to cause the maximum of difficulty to the Public Health Department
and was one of the principal reasons for the loss of some of
our best sanitary inspectors, who could not stand the continued
frustration of their best efforts; and the shortage of materials,
when we had to plead, for instance, for slates for roofs, cement
and sanitary fittings so that builders could comply with notices
and when it was necessary to loan Elsan closets to many tenants
because the builders found it impossible to get the necessary fittings.
It was not imagined that such a state of things could be possible
at the close of a victorious war and it was fortunate that in these
trying times the Department had men of the calibre of Mr. Alexander
and Mr. Long, who have assisted me in a great majority of