[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for West Ham].

  • West Ham (London, England). County Borough.
Date:
[1948?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for West Ham]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The year also saw the opening, in connection with Knox Road Special School, of the Romford Road Home for 18 educationally subnormal boys who were unable to remain at their own homes on account of behaviour or other difficulties. One other notable event was the visit of 41 West Ham children to Switzerland, which is described on page 65. On the other hand, difficulties have to be recorded arising from the growing shortage of health visitors, and towards the end of the year the Council adopted a scheme for the assisted training of health visitors in return for a minimum length of service, and took the initiative in discussions which it is hoped will lead to the establishment of an additional training course to meet the needs of the South West Essex area. The School Dental Service also had its share of difficulties during the year owing to shortage of Dental Officers, and the planned development of this service perforce remained in abeyance. By virtue of the National Health Service Act 1946, this is the last full year in which the hospitals will be administered by the Council. Though working continually in the shadow of the sentence passed by Parliament, the Health Committee did not allow themselves to be deterred from developing the hospital services where needed. Indeed, on page 46 will be found an account of the much needed increases in medical staff for Whipps Cross Hospital which had been seriously delayed by war time conditions: at the same time many valuable links were forged with the public health clinic services, as described in the body of the report, which it is hoped will retain a measure of the hospital's interest in the Borough after the separation has taken place. At the same hospital the catering service was re-organised and developed and plans were drawn up for accommodating extensions of the X-Ray Department and other ancillary services; while at Forest Gate Hospital extensive work was carried out on a new maternity unit. Moreover future alignments were anticipated by making empty wards at the Council's Plaistow Fever Hospital available for Queen Mary's Hospital, a marriage of the municipal and the voluntary, at one time considered incompatible, which worked harmoniously to the public good. At this same 5