[Report 1948] / Medical Officer of Health, Oxfordshire County Council.

  • Oxfordshire (England). County Council. n 81006935.
Date:
1948
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1948] / Medical Officer of Health, Oxfordshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    26/88 (page 24)
    ALMONER’S REPORT FOR THE V.D. DEPARTMENT, RADGLIFFE INFIRMARY, 1948 Review of Figures for 1948 All medical officers concerned have already received a return of the figures for 1948, but may perhaps be interested to have some comments on how this compares with previous years. The figures for new patients in the male clinic are higher for 1948 compared with 1947. The new patients found to be suffering from Syphilis are up by about 10 per cent and are the highest for the last five years; the number of patients with Gonorrhoea are also up, by 21 per cent, and are the second highest for five years. In the women’s clinic the figures have gone down; there was a big drop in new cases of Syphilis—44 compared with 62 last year. This is encouraging as the figures had been mounting steadily year by year since 1944, and this is the first drop. There is a slightly smaller decline in the figures of new cases of Gonorrhoea in the women’s clinic, but the total is the lowest for five years, the figures having dropped steadily each year. There is still a big discrepancy between the figures for Gonorrhoea for men and women (78 and 19 respectively). This has been the case for the last three years and was referred to in my report last year. I consider the main reasons for this are as follows:— (1) A high proportion of male patients default after one or two attendances and as a result they are often not questioned about their contacts and urged to get them to attend. (2) Of the men seen a large number state that they do not know who the girl is as she was a casual pick up, often after they had had too much to drink, and their recollection of the episode is hazy. (3) Owing to the fact that the symptoms are often very slight in a woman, a woman suffering from Gonorrhoea often does not attend of her own accord for treatment, and remains untreated and a danger to future contacts. • A development in 1948 has been the growing number of foreigners attending the men’s clinic. The numbers have increased each quarter and form 14 per cent of the total number of new patients. These men are mainly Poles and Yugoslavs, living in camps. The reason why we are getting so many of these men at the clinic is, I think, obvious. They are strangers in a strange land, living in hostels and camps, often in an isolated place, with very few home comforts, and no home life or normal female companionship. Naturally they gravitate to the local public house and pick up any girl who is willing to go out with them. The problem will, presumably, resolve itself in time as these men become absorbed in the normal life of the community, and marry. Last year we had a similar problem with the men living at two big camps for labourers working at Harwell, but these camps have dwindled in size, or been closed down, so that they no longer present the problem they did.