[Report 1962] / Medical Officer of Health, North Riding of Yorkshire County Council.

  • North Riding of Yorkshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1962
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1962] / Medical Officer of Health, North Riding of Yorkshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Training. Arrangements are made through the Queen’s Institute of District Nursing for suitable candidates to take a three or four month’s course of district training. In some cases recipients of health visitors scholarships undertake combined district and health visitors training under the auspices of the Queen’s Institute Scheme. VACCINATION AND IMMUNISATION. The health visitors are given the duty of stimulating the interest of patients in immunisation of the child population against diphtheria and poliomyelitis but it is most difficult to interest a parent in vaccinating a child. The virtual disappearance of diph¬ theria and smallpox tends to make parents careless and difficult to convince on the merits of protective measures. Many practitioners, though they have a financial incentive to immunise, are not active in this matter until a case of diphtheria occurs, or a positive swab is reported. During 1952 the County Council added a scheme for immunising children against whooping cough and for some years both single antigens and a combined pertussis were supplied. Triple antigen was also provided at the urgent request of local medical practitioners. Sessional meetings were held as in previous years in the urban areas, mostly staffed by whole-time officers. A fee of 5/- is paid to general medical practitioners for every notification of immuni¬ sation or vaccination except when sessions are organised by area offices when the proper sessional fee is payable. Diphtheria Immunisation. The maintenance of a high cegree of immunity against diphtheria depends to a great extent on the work of the health visitors; unfortunately in the densely populated Tees-side area the health visiting staff has been depleted for some time and this has affected the figures shown below for the year 1962. Children born in the years 1962 1961 1960 1959 1958 1953-57 1948-52 T otal Primary series .. 1584 2818 343 97 74 448 65 5429 Booster doses ,. — 4 22 14 41 2442 154 2677 Smallpox Vaccination. The following table sets out the position as regards vaccination against smallpox in the year under review. The smallpox epidemic which affected various parts of the United Kingdom spread to Yorkshire and caused some panic : the figures show the effect on vaccination. The issue of lymph was controlled in conjunction with the staff of the Public Health Laboratory Service. Vacinations Re-vaccinations Year Under 1-14 15 yrs. Under 1-14 15 yrs. 1 yr. years & over Total 1 yr. years & over Total 1956 1,850 264 166 2,280 13 100 262 375 1957 1,897 257 139 2,293 2 120 293 415 1958 2,306 351 168 2,825 — 147 305 452 1959 2,155 400 166 2,721 — 143 306 449 1960 2,353 684 201 3,238 — 102 346 488 1961 2,358 1,038 301 3,697 — 150 378 528 1962 2,453 8,332 7,978 18,763 2 3,872 11,790 15,664