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6
Metropolitan Borough of Hackney
REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
FOR THE YEAR 1951
Public Health Department,
Town Hall, Hackney, E.8.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Metropolitan Borough of Hackney.
This Annual Report is presented in the abridged form required
by the Ministry of Health Ciroular 42/51 concerning annual
reports of Medical Officers of Health for 1951 but, nevertheless, it
contains sufficient information to illustrate the essential importance
of the work of the Public Health Department.
Sanitary Inspection.
By the time this report is circulated my successor in office will
have been appointed, and it is unfortunate for the newly-appointed
Medical Officer of Health that he has to take over at a time when
the department is experiencing such difficulty both in retaining
existing sanitary inspectors and in securing replacements for those
leaving the Council's service.
The Sanitary Officers' Guild, which is registered as a Trade
Union under the Trade Union Acts, has protested to the Council
on behalf of its members in Hackney. Particulars will be found on
page 27.
During the past twelve months we have lost seven sanitary
inspectors who have resigned in order to take up more lucrative
appointments elsewhere, and a particularly disquieting aspect of
these resignations has been that with one exception the officers
concerned obtained their first appointment as sanitary inspectors
with Hackney, so that their new employing authorities benefit by
the experience which these inspectors have obtained with this
Council. If this state of affairs is to continue Hackney will become
a training ground for sanitary inspectors for other authorities.
We have practically lost hope of appointing another woman
sanitary inspector whose services are so useful in dealing with
helpless elderly people and women employed in industry.
The shortage of sanitary inspectors, which has been almost
continuous during the past few years, oauses considerable delay in
dealing with complaints and other matters of importance, and has
its repercussions not only upon the work of the department itself,
but also in the department's relations with the public.