Annual medical and sanitary report / Nigeria.

  • Nigeria. Medical Department.
Date:
[1918]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual medical and sanitary report / Nigeria. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/172 (page 13)
    3. Work done by Sanitary Officers.—Normally the staff of Sanitary Officers is four:— One Senior Sanitarv Officer and three Sanitarv Officers. «j / Owing to the shortage of Medical Officers the services of one Sanitary Officer, viz., Dr. Pirie, were placed at the disposal of the medical branch for the whole of the year under review. This, though limiting the sphere of. his work as a Sanitary Officer to three stations, viz., Calabar, Opobo and Port Harcourt, proved advantageous in other respects from the sanitary aspect and more especially during the last three months of the year when the threatened advent of Influenza into Port Harcourt had to be combated and was successfully stayed for some time as a result of vigorous sanitary activities in the way of precautionary measures that were enforced k i 4. Dr. DalzieJ, Sanitary Officer, whose services are usually lent to the Town Council as Medical Officer of Health, Lagos, was on leave from March to November, and hence during this major part of the year Dr. Beringer, Sanitary Officer, took the place of Dr. Dalziel as Medical Officer of Health, Lagos. 5. This drain on the services of the sanitary staff left the Senior Sanitary Officer single-handed and restricted his energies mainly to office work at headquarters and even this routine office work was much handicapped by the outbreak of Influenza, due not only to the absence of all the clerical staff from illness—a lot common to all the Government offices, but owing to the urgency of the situation which demanded the devotion of energy by each and ail of the senior members of the medical and sanitary staff to the care and treatment of the sick so as to tide the very grave and anxious time that everyone went through when Influenza with its attendant mortality, swept rapidly through Lagos and the whole of Nigeria. G. So great was the need for medical and sanitary reinforcement during the Influenza Epidemic in Lagos that the services of Dr. Inness, Sanitary Officer, Northern Provinces, were obtained temporarily by the Director of Medical and Sanitary Services for a period of one month. 7. Notwithstanding the foregoing, during intervals when facilities existed, tours of inspection were made by Sanitary Officers and many places were visited and sanitary advice given locally. 8. Many stations were visited with a view to the selection of sites for the layout of a township on sanitary lines. Such townships with the application of the principles of segregation and efficient sanitary control will prove of great value and they will in themselves when properly organised forward the sanitary cause locally. At present those formed are in their infancy and much has to be done to enable them to develop into sanitary efficiency. 9. The supervision of the office of Registrar of Vital Statistics is a duty that is conducted by the Senior Sanitary Officer in the capacity of Principal Registrar. The utility of registration of deaths in Lagos, including that of natives, was very forcibly brought out in the initial phase of an epidemic like Influenza when the sudden and obvious lise in the deaths in September led to investigation of sudden and obscure deaths, which, by means of post-mortem examinations, enabled the sanitary authorities to ascertain that Influenza had made its initial advent and so permitted of early action to be taken with a view to combating the disease.