[Report 1905] / Medical Officer of Health, Newport (Gwent) County Borough.

  • Newport (Wales). County Council.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1905] / Medical Officer of Health, Newport (Gwent) County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/72 (page 9)
    The Births registered in the Borough during 1905, numbered 2,274— namely, 1,187 boys and 1,087 girls. Of this number 47 were returned as illegitimate, a percentage of 2T compared with a percentage of 2*5 during 1904. The birth rate for the year was 3T2. The natural increase in the population, or excess of births over deaths, was 1,112, whilst the estimated total increase amounted to 1,337. The birth rate during 1905 was 2*2 per 1,000 below the average of the previous ten years. DEATHS. The Deaths registered numbered 1,162, which afford a death rate of 15*9 per 1,000 inhabitants per annum, compared with 17*2, the average death rate for the previous ten years. From an analysis of the Registrar’s Returns, I find that 197 deaths occurred in public institutions, viz., the Union Workhouse, County Infirmary, Allt-yr-yn Hospital, &c., a number equal to 16*9 per cent, of the total deaths. The Registrar General in calculating the death rates in each locality allocates all deaths occurring in Public Institutions for the reception of the sick to the districts whence they came, and in this way a more correct death rate of each locality is obtained. For instance, a small rural district in which is situated a large Union Infirmary or Asylum would otherwise present a very misleading death rate. The Registrar General is able to do this owing to the fact that he obtains a record of each death throughout the country from local Registrars. Medical Officers of Health on the other hand receive official returns from the local Registrar only respecting the deaths which have occurred within their district, without any correction for deaths of outsiders occurring in Public Institutions. In calculating the death rates in their districts. Medical Officers of Health are instructed by the Local Government Board to subtract those referring to sick people who belong to other districts but who have died in Public Institutions in the district and to add those of residents who have died outside the districts in Public Institutions, etc. Unfortunately, there is no official means of securing this information, and no obligation on the part of any official to supply it, consequently these corrections are very imperfectly made. In some towns a large number of deaths of outsiders ” are thus excluded, whilst those deaths are not added to the returns of the districts whence they came. Hence the death rates in some towns are incorrectly stated, particularly in some Health Resorts where the deaths of “ non-residents ” occurring in private houses even are excluded.