Annual reports of the Principal Medical Officer and the Senior Sanitary Officer / Tanganyika Territory.

  • Tanganyika. Medical Department.
Date:
[1922]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual reports of the Principal Medical Officer and the Senior Sanitary Officer / Tanganyika Territory. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/218 (page 17)
    1921. It is thought that nothing is gained by setting out at length the figures for each station and they are now combined in one return. In addition there are 28 posts at which a dispensary and, in some instances, a small hospital for emergency native cases, is in charge of an Asiatic compounder or native hospital attendant. Table E of last year’s Report does not appear in the present Report; the number of in- and out¬ patients respectively is shown in Table G. It will be seen that in 1922 there was a decrease of some 9,000 cases treated compared with 1921. This is accounted for by the fact that returns from Songea were not received in time for inclusion this year and the returns from five other small stations (Mafia, Mbulu, Mohoro, Musoma and Shinyanga), which appeared in last year’s Report, are not included. As the Department was represented at these stations only by a compounder or native dispenser the returns are not sufficiently accurate to be of value. On the other hand, returns from two new stations, Mikindani and Kahama, are included. The number of in-patients treated during 1922 shows an increase of 1,587 over last year’s figures, the percentage mortality amongst them being 3-43 per cent., as against 3-71 per cent in 1921. The increase in in-patient work is reflected also in Table F, pp. 60-62, which shows 956 surgical operations performed, an increase of 113 over 1921. The apparent decrease in the total cases treated during the year under review is therefore due to the non-inclusion of out-patient returns from several small stations and from Songea; at the principal stations the work is growing rapidly, as the figures below show :— In-Patients Out-Patients Total 1921 1922 1921 1922 1921 1922 Sewa Hadji Hospital Dar-es- Salaam ... ... ... Tanga Hospital 1,186 816 1,870 1,210 7,076 5,966 12,081 7-577 8,262 6,782 I3.95I 8,787 Maternity Work at the Sewa Hadji Hospital, Dar-es-Salaam. At the end of August, 1922, a nursing sister was posted to the Sewa Hadji Hospital. She has been able to do much good work in improving the arrangements for the care of the ordinary inmates of the hospital and in other ways, but reports that natives seldom desire European assistance in confinements. Indian women, though ready enough to receive assistance in their homes, will only come into hospital as a last resource. Progress is, therefore, slow, and to the end of the year only one confinement and three cases of puerperal septicaemia were admitted to ?