View report page

9
Special Care Unit. 117 persons were examined, 91 were found to need treatment
and of these 86 were offered treatment, the remainder already having a
dental practitioner. With the co-operation of the Inner London Education
Authority, a Mobile Dental Clinic was taken to the Hackney and Millfields
Centres, and some of the trainees from the Homerton Centre were treated at the
Wick Maternal and Child Health Centre. The innovation has in every way
proved a success.
During 1967 the Social Services Co-ordinating Committee, consisting of
the Chief Officers of the Health, Children's, Welfare and Housing Departments,
and representatives of the Education Authority, the Housing Department of the
Greater London Council, the Ministry of Social Security, the Probation Service
and certain voluntary organisations, continued its meetings to co-ordinate
the social services available for families with major social problems living
in the Borough. In July, the Committee set up a small working party to investigate
the problems of Kingsmead Estate. The working party made contact
with a wide range of social services, and the Kingsmead Tenants' Association
and it is hoped that their findings, embodied in a report, will be available
during 1968.
The Council continued the service run by the former Metropolitan Borough
of Hackney to provide baths for older people in the Borough who have no
facilities in their own homes. Bathing is done either at the Millfields
Centre or in patient's own home. The facilities at Millfields have become
out of date and during the year the Health Committee approved the provision of
improved facilities at the Shoreditch Health Centre. Work was in progress at
the end of the year to bring these improved facilities about.
This report again embodies a report on the School Health Service which
includes the School Dental Service. I give in the main body of the report
the details of the service, but I would again wish to thank the various
officers of the Inner London Education Authority for their full co-operation
and courtesy throughout the year.
On the environmental side, Hackney's main problem still remains that of
housing. Although the Council does much to ameliorate the position by the
provision of housing, many families in the Borough still live in far from
satisfactory conditions. The Department still does all it can by implementing
legislation to try to ameliorate the worst conditions. It tries to secure
this by slum clearance; by applying reasonable standards for houses in multiple
occupation; and by attempting to remedy, through the Public Health Acts
and other legislation, bad conditions in houses.
The year has seen no great change from previous years in respect of infectious
disease and there were no major epidemics. During the year primary
notifications of tuberculosis remained more or less constant. The figures
obtained from the various clinics dealing with venereal disease show some
increase, mainly in respect of gonorrhoea. The increase In the figures was
accounted for mainly by an increase in the numbers of persons attending
hospitals outside Hackney itself.
The Borough is now a smoke free area, the last Area having been dealt
with in 1967. Although the Borough is now 'smoke free', complaints continue
to be made about various sources of pollution. These involve the chimneys of
various statutory bodies, and complaints have also been received of pollution
by coal dust in one area. Although it is not possible to measure it, the
problem of pollution from the exhaust of the internal combustion engine is now
beginning to take the place of black smoke from the combustion of coal and
other products.