View report page

BOROUGH OF SOUTHWARK.
Southward Tuberculosis Dispensary,
82-84, Newington Causeway, S.E.
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of the
Borough of Southwark.
Sir and Gentlemen,
In presenting my Annual Report for the year of 1919, I have
pleasure in recording, for the second year in succession, a diminution of
new cases of Pulmonary Tuberculosis notified in the Borough, and also a
diminution of the death-rate from the same disease. The chief advances
made during the year have been the provision by the County Council of
more open air schools for children slightly infected with Tuberculosis,
and the opening of two residential Sanatoria for children, one in Margate
for surgical cases, and the other at Brentwood for Pulmonary cases,
where their education can continue concurrently with their treatment.
As regards adults, several patients have been transferred to training
colonies for open air life and training, and others who contracted the
disease during war service have been recommended suitable training
through the Ministry of Pensions to enable them to make a fresh start in
life under conditions more suitable to their state of health.
The work done at the Digpensary steadily increases, but it is felt
that better results will be obtained as a consequence of the endeavour to
follow the cases up.
The overcrowding of individual tenements and rooms still continues,
and families find it difficult to get sufficient accommodation so that the
isolation of the patient which should be carried out in pulmonary cases
is frequently impossible, and the risk of contaminating other susceptible
members of the family is considerable in spite of taking the precautious
which we continually impress upon them.
To improve matters we lend out beds to relieve the congestion in
the rooms where tho patient is not able to buy one, and hope shortly to
increase the number, as apart from the question of infection the crowding
of so many persons in one bed, as we find often done, must affect the
health of the occupants, and predispose them to the disease.