Annual report / Province of Manitoba, Department of Health and Welfare.

  • Manitoba. Department of Health and Public Welfare.
Date:
[1934]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report / Province of Manitoba, Department of Health and Welfare. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    8/108 (page 6)
    portion of mental defectives could be made self-supporting in the community if they were given the proper type of institutional care and training, and under the present circumstances this is impossible. With the completion of the new unit at Brandon in 1935 we believe that this Institution will have reached the maximum capacity for maximum efficiency and that any new construction required in the future for persons suffering from mental diseases should be made at Selkirk. The appointment of a farm manager some two years ago has been a decided success and we feel convinced that the farms at all the Institutions will year by year prove not only a greater financial asset to the Province, but also will be of greater value in supplying much needed work for the inmates of these Institutions. A considerable amount of new building has been done at each of the Institutions without any capital outlay, and we think that all construction of a minor nature should be taken care of out of the routine appropriation by the use of the staff at the Institutions and the assistance of patient labour. DIVISION OF DISEASE PREVENTION: Communicable Disease: This Division continues to show a tremendous amount of work being done, particularly in the rural parts of the Province, towards the preven¬ tion of disease and the improvement of living conditions. Despite the general increase of diphtheria throughout Canada, and also in our own Province, it is very gratifying to note that those municipalities in the Province, which have, since 1929, put on immunization programmes amongst their school children, show a decidedly lower diphtheria rate than the municipalities which have not put on the programme. It was found necessary, during the year, for the Board of Health to advise the Minister to make the programme for immunization compulsory in a municipality in which there had been and was a great deal of diphtheria, and in which the munici¬ pality refused to carry on the necessary work. This programme is now about com¬ pleted. Typhoid Fever showed some reduction over last year and we think this is entirely due to the excellent work being done by the Division of Sanitation. Sanitation: One or two items in particular are worthy of note. During the early months of last year a study was made by this Division of the records in the Depart¬ ment in reference to the incidence of Typhoid Fever; and suggestion was made to this office that a sanitary survey be made in those municipalities in which typhoid fever had been most prevalent during the past few years. Altogether four rural municipalities, two towns, one disorganized and one unorganized area were surveyed and report made of conditions found to the Medical Officer of Health involved, and through him, to the Municipal Council. The Sanitary Officer, while making the survey, reported direct to the Health Officer and the Municipal Council, submitting recommendations as to improvements. It has been an exceedingly satisfactory piece of work in that the environment of the people in these municipalities has been greatly improved and we hope that we will be able to continue this work year by year until ultimately we have the whole of rural Manitoba covered and the environment of our rural people raised to the highest possible standard. Another very excellent piece of work done by the Division of Sanitation was the control of Tourist Camps. Owing to the reasonably high standard required by our Inspectors, conditions in these camps have been entirely satisfactory. This is evidenced by the fact that no complaints of any kind were received at the Department in refer¬ ence to any of these camps during the past year.