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Another feature, too, is that under the same roof other phases of
the Council's work function, we see the children of our tuberculous
patients under the healing rays at the Sunlight Centre, the wives and
mothers seeking advice at the Ante-Natal Clinic, and feel that we are
not working alone; and the knowledge that the combined results of all
of us must in time evolve that dream of the future, a healthy people,
gives us courage, and truly we need encouragement in our particularly
sad and tragic branch of the work.
This year 148 patients have been recommended for treatment and
referred to the Care Committee. As usual, each case has been visited
and helped to make arrangements to enable them to accept treatment.
For the benefit of new readers we must repeat ourselves and remark
that "help" generally implies that clothing has been obtained, arrangements
made for the care of the children, maintenance of the family, etc.
It is with sorrow that we state that some of these 148 patients are no
longer alive ; some are still away, others have returned to their home,
in some cases such sad and sorry homes where the only cause for
surprise is that any member of the family is well and not that one
member is ill. For many of our cases we can see no prospect of
substantial improvements in conditions during their shortened lives,
lack of means being just as an insuperable a bar to a better state of
things as dearth of suitable accommodation. Our only hope lies in the
thought that the future generation will not suffer in the same way, and
to this end we are working.
A pleasing feature of Care Committee work is that the welfare of
the family in contact with our patient is of matter to us. If any action
of ours can help them to escape the danger to which they are unavoidably
exposed, then surely can our work be called blessed. A healthy
person is such an asset to the State that the duty of keeping them well
seems as important, looked at from an economic point of view, as the
care of the sick is from a humane standpoint. The latter we know will
be always cared for; we are not so sure about the former.
In connection with these patients returning from a course of institutional
treatment it is noticeable that with many of them careful
habits have been acquired, together with a love of fresh air, thus the
benefits of sanatorium treatment cannot be said to be confined to the
patient alone but benefit those in contact with them at home also.
Education is indeed a potent weapon with which to fight this terrible
but preventable disease.