[Report 1958] / Medical Officer of Health, Eastbourne County Borough.

  • Eastbourne (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1958
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1958] / Medical Officer of Health, Eastbourne County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The home nursing and home help services have increasingly contributed towards the care of the aged at home, supported by health visiting and meals on wheels services. Specially designed housing units under the overall care of a warden have also enabled more old people to look after themselves thus relieving pressure on the Council’s residential homes for the aged and ultimately upon hospital beds. Vaccination and immunisation has been well sustained in regard to smallpox, diphtheria and whooping cough. By far the major part of the immense programme of poliomyelitis vaccination has been under- taken by direct sessional arrangements within the department. The rising list of antigens has now made urgent the problem of personal records. One would make a strong plea that the Medical Research Council or other appropriate body be asked to keep constantly under review the antigens for childhood immunisation, the ages at and order in which they should be given including combinations of antigens, and that such advice should be urged upon all local health authorities and, in turn, upon general practitioners. The present position is very unsatisfactory. Practices differ widely between respective local health authorities and among practitioners within them. Under- standably there may be differences of opinion in the light of the avail- able knowledge at any given time. Nevertheless, in the interests of uniformity there must surely be an optimum of advice which a responsible committee could provide at any given time. The ambulance service continues to receive ever greater demands, mostly from other branches of the service. Probably no authority could run this service more economically than the local health authority; nevertheless, there is much to be said in favour of the hospitals—the largest user—being responsible for the administration of this service which is so little related to preventive medicine, the prime function of the local health authority. The changing pattern of tuberculosis in the community has been reflected by the move in the latter part of the decade of the Chest Clinic from local authority premises to a position within the hospital curtilage where diagnosis and treatment of other chest diseases is facilitated and where there is a readier access to X-ray facilities. It is to be hoped that the social needs of the not inconsiderable number of persons on the tuberculosis register will receive no less consideration as a consequence of this move. The development of the mental health services has been steady but not spectacular. The mental hospitals have not been backward in implementing the spirit of the Royal Commission’s Report towards community care of the mentally ill. One of the effects of this has been an increasing difficulty in securing the admission of the chronic mental patient for whom active treatment offers little hope of permanent cure. Hallucinated, deluded, disorientated, restless and agitated persons have appeared and remained in the community in greater numbers than hitherto and in advance of the community being conditioned or equipped to deal with them. Such persons can cause havoc among residents and staff in homes for the aged, despair to their relatives