[Report 1931] / Medical Officer of Health, Birkenhead County Borough.

  • Birkenhead (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1931
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1931] / Medical Officer of Health, Birkenhead County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/111 (page 9)
    PREFACE. The period covered in this report is the calendar year, 1931. The Annual Eeport for 1930- was, at the request of the Ministry, very full and detailed, and included a review of the five-year period 1926—1930'. It has not been considered necessary in the present report to give more than a summarised statement. Complete records of each section of the work of the department have, however, been prepared, and will be available for future reference. During the earlier part of the year careful consideration was given to the question of the “ appropriation ” of the Birkenhead (Tranmere) Infirmary for the purposes of a Municipal Hospital, to be administered as an integral part of the Council’s public health services under the Public Health Acts instead of under the Poor Law Acts; and a recommendation of the Public Assistance Committee was made to this effect. This came before the Town Council in September and was approved. Application was then made to the Ministry of Health for the necessary sanction, and this was in due course received. Pending the formal transfer of the administration of the hospital from the Public Assistance Committee, this is temporarily being carried on under the Poor Law Acts. The results of the Census enumeration were issued by the Registrar-General in 1931 and showed a recorded population for Birkenhead of 147,946. This will be accepted with some reserve. It is known that the enumeration was carried out under considerable difficulties, and the available information as to the number of insured persons in the Borough, etc., would appear to justify the belief that the actual population is considerably in excess of the recorded figure. This question is discussed somewhat fully in the present report (pages I to 4). The recorded birth-rate and death-rate for the Borough for 1931 are both increased as compared with the rates for 1930. The rates for the two years, however, cannot fairly be compared. The 1930 rates were, on the instructions of the Ministry of Health, based on the last available estimate of the population of the Borough issued by the Registrar-General, namely, 157,600; and may therefore have been understated. Interesting developments in the Council’s tuberculosis arrangements include the provision of facilities for artificial pneumothorax treatment at the Birkenhead Infirmary, and the supervision of in-patients in that institution suffering from tuberculosis by the Clinical Tuberculosis Officer (page 24). The arrangements for the treatment of venereal diseases have been greatly improved by the appointment of a male orderly, and by the introduction of increased facilities for bacteriological and biochemical investigations (page 27).