Annual report of the Medical and Health Department / Colony of Seychelles.

  • Seychelles. Medical and Health Department.
Date:
[1960]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Annual report of the Medical and Health Department / Colony of Seychelles. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/74
    GENERAL REVIEW It is fitting that the opening words of the 'Report should be a word of gratitude for work done and of good wishes foj* the future addressed to Dr. K. Edmundson, the Director of Medical Services for the last 3 years, who left the Colony for good in December of the year under review. No successor was appointed before his departure. The task of compiling this review and of tabulating the figures for the last year of his work therefore falls upon one who had no hand in the shaping of them and to whom therefore neither praise nor blame must be ascribed, Quidquid agunt homines nostri est farago libelli. 2# The year 19&0 was made a unique year by the appointment of Dr. Philip as a part-time ophthalmic surgeon to the Victoria Hospital. This is the first tine that Mahe has been fortunate enough to have a resident ophthalmic surgeon. The work of the infant department (summarised on page 8) shows that the appointment was amply justified. e 3. Turning to visitors from outside who came at the request of the Seychelles Government to help the Medical Department we have to record the visit of two Teams. Drs. Poy and Kondi, who had arrived in November 1959, finished their review of the causes of anaemia in the Islands and left in I960. In this Report they considered that Hookworm infection to be the chief cause, that sub-Nutrition was a second but very minor cause, and that the existing state of affairs could be remedied by the talcing of iron by- the mouth and by better sewage system. 4* The second Team of visitors was the World Health Organisation Tuberculosis Survey Team. Two of the members of this team arrived late in the year and began to study the ground and the line of action required. As no actual work was carried out by this Team in i960, there is no need to do more than mention their arrival. Appraisal of their work must be left to the Report of the following year. 5« The general health of the Colony has been good throughout the year, though there was an outbreak of measles towards the end of the year. The origin of the epidemic, the accuracy of the diagnosis, and the morbidity it caused were the subject of more than one leading article in the local press and produced a rather acrimonious and totally unfounded attach upon the Medical Services in the Colony. As the epidemic extended into the New Year, it is more fitting to discuss it at length in the Report for 1961 when the full figures of case incidence and mortality will be known. Suffice to add here that any disease which a healthy child will normally throw off, is potentially dangerous in the Seychelles, where the standard of child nutrition is low, where anaemia is rampant, and where resistance has not been acquired through repeated infection. 6« Increased vigilance by the Public Health staff has resulted in discovery of six cases of Leprosy. All were segregated in the Leprosarium, thereby, bringing up the total number of Lepers under treatment to 17. 7* A word must be said about new buildings. Eirst and most important., is the building of the new X-ray Department. (The actual.instrument should be in operation in 196l). The building is an ambitious one. At one end has been constructed the Tuberculosis Out Patient Department with consulting room, waiting and changing rooms, toilets and direct access to the photographic room. At the other end of the building will be a waiting room for the general public, changing rooms, toilets, and access to the photographic room from the other side. Thus, persons suffering from Tuberculosis will never come in content with other sick people. In between the two will be the Records Office, the Developing Room, and of course the Machine itself. 8* Other building operations include the wiring of the whole hospital for AC current (not yet available) and the handing over to the Educational Department of the big building above the Hospital which was originally designed for a Tuberculosis Sanatorium. New buildings were also completed at Anse Royale, but these have not been put into use during the year uhder review.