[Report 1940] / Medical Officer of Health, St Helens County Borough.

  • St. Helens (Merseyside, England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1940
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1940] / Medical Officer of Health, St Helens County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/86 (page 4)
    TO THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND COUNCILLORS OF THE COUNTY BOROUGH OF ST. HELENS. Mr, Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the honour to present my Annual Report on the health of St. Helens for 1940. As with the Report for 1939 the Report this year has again been considerably curtailed whilst retaining the more important statistics and tables for record purposes. Despite the strain and stress associated with the first year of the war, the Report can, I think, on the whole be considered satis¬ factory. That there should be an increase in the death rate is not unexpected when one considers that the reduction in population as estimated by the Registrar General is to a very large extent due to the large number of physically fit adults who have left the town to join the various Services. War strain is also bound to have an effect. The infant mortality showed a small decrease during the year from 79.5 per 1,000 births in 1939 to 78.2 in 1940. This mortality is, however, still high and stresses the importance of maintaining the Maternity and Child Welfare and Health Visiting Services at their highest standard. Despite the greatly increased duties thrown on the Depart¬ ment bv civil defence and other war time duties, and the constant changes in staff occasioned by the calling up of various members for duty with the Services, there has been practically no reduction in the work of the health services and in the various sections of the Report will be found a record of the considerable activities of the Department. That it has been possible to do so is entirely due to