Report of the Committee of Management and Medical Director : 1944 / Papworth Village Settlement.

  • Papworth Village Settlement (Cambridge, England)
Date:
1944
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee of Management and Medical Director : 1944 / Papworth Village Settlement. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/16 (page 5)
    REPORT OF THE HON. MEDICAL DIRECTOR FOR THE YEAR 1944. I HAVE the honour to present the Annual Report for the year ended 31st December, 1944. A study of the figures of admission and discharge will show how the work has grown during the most difficult of all the war years, when staff, medical and nursing, has been well below the minimum for efficiency for our present number of beds. I would in particular call attention to the steady increase in surgical treatment. In 1942-43 the total of operations performed was 227 ; this was six above the four years’ total for the four pre-war years 1936—1939, when Papworth had adequate resident staff and could expect much more from its visiting staff. Nevertheless the work has increased still further ; the total of operations for the period under review is 382. This is clear proof of the importance of collapse therapy in the rehabilitation of the tuberculous. Artificial pneumothorax and its ancillary treatments of adhesion section and phrenic paralysis have changed the outlook for large numbers of the tuberculous. There are unfor¬ tunately many patients who cannot attain arrest of the disease by these simpler forms of collapse treatment. They require the varied operations of thoracoplasty. Their selection demands great care and their individual treatment a skill which is yet in the hands of but few surgeons. Neverthe¬ less, already the after-histories of sanatorium-treated patients' from institutions properly equipped for such modern methods of therapy have shown the enormous benefits they confer on the individual and on the national economy. Survival rates five years after discharge are now showing something near a twenty per cent, improvement. Papworth has now had the Nelson- Langermann Surgical Hospital in operation for nine years, it has pro¬ duced excellent results with limited accommodation. It will certainly be called on more and more in the immediate future. Papworth is excellently situated as a collecting point for all patients requiring every form of chest surgery from thora¬ cotomy to lobectomy. It is near a University which has a post-graduate scheme in view for the training of medical and surgical registrars in chest disease. We must be ready to take these opportunities, and it is therefore my earnest hope that the schemes of ; extension now under review by the Medical Consultative Committee will meet with the sympathy and support of the Committee of Management, so that we can look forward to the early provision of an increased number of beds and the necessary extra theatre accommodation in the near future. [5]