[Report 1939] / Medical Officer of Health, North Riding of Yorkshire County Council.

  • North Riding of Yorkshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1939
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1939] / Medical Officer of Health, North Riding of Yorkshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in making provision for the reception of these persons. In regard to school children, reference has already been made in the report of the School Medical Officer for 1939 to the Education Committee. Arrangements for the other classes, which were mainly the concern of the Public Health Committee, also placed heavy and additional responsi¬ bilities on the work of the Public Health Department as they involved the establishment and administration or supervision of new maternity homes, accommodation for crippled persons and blind persons and the preparation of a regional scheme for emergency isolation hospital accommodation in collaboration with county districts. While the Government Evacuation Scheme was a modified success in regard to school children, in so far as expectant mothers and children under five years of age were concerned it cannot be described otherwise than as a failure. The psychological effect of such a disturbance in family life as was involved in evacuation had been under¬ estimated, and the very early return home of expectant mothers and mothers with children under five years of age was a measure of its importance, which was fully appreciated in a sut sequent evacuation scheme. With regard to evacuation as a whole, there was much criticism in the early days of the condition of evacuees received in the Riding and much of it was justified, but such criticism appears to have been universal in receiving areas throughout the country. It has been said, insofar as school children were concerned, that the lack of supervision during the school holidays was the primary cause of the poor condition of some of the evacuees. This explanation, however, cannot be applied to all the priority classes. A more important factor would appear to be that evacuation, being governed by density of population, affected persons from the poorer and more densely populated districts of the evacuating towns. In these districts of the large towns, environmental conditions militate against a high standard of personal hygiene ; and the evacuation scheme, if its intended benefits were limited, focussed attention on a problem inherent in the slum districts of all large towns. No praise is too high for the district councils in the Riding which, as billeting authorities, were confronted with a new and exceedingly difficult problem, and for the commendable manner in which these authorities tackled the many complicated problems involved. It is, however, to the billeting householders who received evacuees that the main thanks are due for their sympathetic consideration and interest taken in the evacuees whom they received into their homes. (xi) Venereal Diseases. No major alteration was made in this scheme during the year. Experience during the last war showed that there was an increase in the incidence of venereal diseases as a result of war-time conditions. Towards the end of 1939, a special enquiry was made to ascertain if any such increase had become apparent since the beginning of the present war, but enquiries made at clinics, from general practitioners and from the army authorities showed no such increase, at least at that time. (xii) Rural Housing. During the year applications for grants in respect of 58 cottages were approved by the Committee, bringing the total number of grants at 31st