[Report 1955] / Medical Officer of Health, County of Zetland (Shetland Islands).

  • Shetland (Scotland). County Council.
Date:
1955
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1955] / Medical Officer of Health, County of Zetland (Shetland Islands). Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/34 (page 8)
    Neighbourly help and help from relatives enable many old people to carry on. There is a great deal of such help being given in the county. We generally hear all about it whenever neighbourly help is not available; but there are many eases where help is unselfishly provided for long periods by good neighbours. Such cases do not get noticed so easily by the public. Our future handling of this problem will require some revision of the work of District Welfare Officers and an extension of their present duties. It will also be necessary for us to keep our district nursing staff at full strength. The opening of Viewforth and Leog Homes will also help, and old persons in the town will in the future benefit from the Town Council's proposed scheme of special housing. We hope it may be possible in future to have a service for old persons in the town centred in and working from Leog Home but this is looking years ahead, VACCINATION and IDiUNISATION Vaccination Against Smallpox The number of infant vaccinations done under the County Council's scheme and notified to the Health Office totalled 10. For many years now less than a dozen such notifications have been received each year. As explained in urevious reports the actual number of vaccinations done is really higher as practitioners do not need to notify all the vaccinations they do, A count done by the District Nurses recently has shown that 4-7 of the infants bom in 1955 had been vaccinated. This means that probably only about one infant in every five or six is vaccinated in infancy. It is a pity that mothers do not realise that vaccination during infancy is advisable. It makes all subsequent re-vaccination against smallpox safer and easier. It is unlikely nowadays that anyone will escape vaccination in adult life and adolescence is not as safe and as suitable an age for primary vaccination. At the end of the year all general practitioners were asked to explain to mothers the advantages of rrimary vaccination in infancy and some slight improvement seems likely in next year's total. Dinhtheria Immunisation Diphtheria immunisations are carried out by practitioners who hold immunising sessions at the country schools. The Medical Officer of Health holds immunising sessions at the Welfare Clinic in Lerwick every few weeks, A table below shows the numbers immunised during the year. Primary Immunisation Pe-inforcing doses By Practitioners 163 81 By Medical Officer of Health 27 - 190 81 The temporary closure of the Welfare Clinic premises for part of the year resulted in fewer immunisations being done. The reports on the trial of a method of combined immunisation against diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus sire awaited with interest. In the meantime the County Council has not adopted any scheme for giving protective injections against whooping cough. Protection against tuberculosis by B. C..G, vaccine is discussed on page 10.