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heretofore in the treatment of insured persons. On the other hand the
actual examinations of cases at the dispensary largely increased in
number and more time was devoted to individual instruction and advice
to patients, who, as a whole do their best to carry out curative and preventive
measures as far as their limited space and frequently crippled
resources will permit. The formation of the interim Care Committee
has been of the greatest benefit to the patients, and an immense help in
our work, both as regards children and adults, and no report would be
complete without an acknowledgment of the enthusiastic interest taken
in the individual cases and the actual hard work undertaken by the
members of that Committee.
This Care Committee composed of representatives of the various
philanthropic organisations, has met fortnightly and has assessed the
amounts payable for children sent away to institutions after carefully
considering the financial position of the family, and as far as possible
have endeavoured to find work through suitable channels for the adult
wage earners who have returned from Sanatoria. This is still a serious
problem, as it is hard for the partially arrested consumptive to realize
that his value as an employee is not so great as that of a man in full
health and he finds it difficult to obtain work under what he considers
remunerative conditions, in addition to which his sphere of opportunity
is limited on account of the desire for outdoor work. For these cases the
proposed extension of the labour colony system seems the only satisfactory
solution of the difficulty.
The proclamation of an armistice has altered the character of some
of the work done as the examination of recruits has ceased, but in its
place has come the examination and care of the definitely tuberculous
discharged soldiers, only too many of whom have either contracted the
disease abroad or have had some latent forces of disease lighted up by the
conditions under which they had been working since joining the forces.
For these the Pensions Committee has done splendid work and
neither trouble nor expense is spared to do all that can be done for those
on whom this misfortune has fallen.
The supervision of the homes has been continuously carried out and
a general improvement has been reported though overcrowding exists
very largely and is due, in our cases, to too many persons of one family
occupying too few rooms and as far as housing is concerned the difficulty
lies in there being too few bouses and also insufficient rooms for each family
at a rental that they are able to pay. This makes our work the more