[Report 1959] / Medical Officer of Health, Aberdeen City.

  • Aberdeen (Scotland). City Council.
Date:
1959
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1959] / Medical Officer of Health, Aberdeen City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/180 (page 7)
    allowance is made for an alteration of the age at which vaccination is offered) a rise in the proportion of babies vaccinated against smallpox. (3) Public demand for child welfare services continued to increase, the total attendances at the child health clinics rising for the fourth successive ’year—a feature more remarkable in that there are now various rehousing areas which do not yet have easily accessible clinics. (4) Health education of groups (or Health Guidance)—which has been repeatedly acclaimed as Aberdeen’s most significant health development—con- tinued at full scale despite staff shortages and staff changes: the total audiences were even larger than in 1958, and audience participation in discussions increased during the year. Although the main stress in group health education is on the promotion of mental health (by education of prospective parents and parents of young children) the health guidance staff at the end of the year were preparing (a) plans for a second home safety campaign, (b) instruction in dental hygiene for children in schools that requested such a service, (c) material for a new Safety Guide (probably to include road safety as well as home safety), and (d) a revised edition of the 1957 Clean Food Guide. As mentioned in the 1958 Report, the development of group health education has already made a major contribution to the health of the community and has helped to off-set the harmful effects of staff shortages. Some information about alterations attributable in Whole or part to the health guidance scheme is given in Chapter 1 of the report. (5) A startling indication of the effect of the preventive services is afforded by the year-by-year decrease in the number of persons under 65 years requiring home nursing: persons treated by the day nursing service are slightly fewer (despite gradual increase in the number of elderly persons needing nursing), because of a remarkable drop in the number of patients under 65—from 2,730 in 1954 to 1,973 in 1959, a decrease of 28% in five years. Similarly the number of persons under 65 treated by the night service has dropped steadily from 95 in 1955 to 56 in 1959. STILL MORE AT CHILD CLINICS. HEALTH GUIDANCE— FULLY MAINTAINED DESPITE STAFF SHORTAGES. PLANS FOR MEASURES IN 1960. STEADY DECREASE IN HOME NURSING OF PERSONS UNDER 65. (6) Among school children decreases were noted in the proportions with better serious defects, and in the proportions found to stammer, to be unstable .or children nervous, or to have dental defects. In most cases the changes were more marked in entrants than in older pupils. Scabies, ringworm and impetigo continued to be rarities; and attendances at minor ailment clinics maintained their year-by- year decline. (7) As a preliminary to the full development of mental after-care and mental BEGINNINGS welfare services—on which two official reports were published during the year— AFTER-CARE, (a) the Principal Assistant M.O. was freed from most other duties to participate in the planning of these services; (b) from the end of 1958 a specialist H.V. was stationed at Kingseat Hospital, getting to know patients before they left hospital and visiting their homes both before and after their discharge; and (c) just before the close of 1959 another H.Y., with additionally a University qualification in social science, began the after-care of educationally subnormal children leaving Beechwood School.