[Report 1960] / Medical Officer of Health, Carlisle City.

  • Carlisle (England). City Council.
Date:
1960
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1960] / Medical Officer of Health, Carlisle City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/100 (page 4)
    Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the honour to present my Annual Report for the year i960. The estimate of the mid-year population will be seen to have increased to 69,960. The 1961 census shows that the City now has a population of 71,112. The loss of life from stillbirths and infant deaths still gives cause for anxiety in the Qty. Every effort is being made to reduce the stillbirth rate and the infantile mortality but as will be seen from the text, many of these losses are, in the light of our present knowledge, unavoidable, though from certain 01 the recently published returns geographical considerations may play a part. There was little notifiable infectious disease in the City during the year but a number of cases of food poisoning did occur. The fall in the number of cases of pulmonary tuberculosis is gratifying but 1 should wish to emphasize the plea made by Dr. W. Hugh Morton in his contribution to this report, that all cases of non- pulmonary tuberculosis should be notified as soon as diagnosis is made. By this action it may be possible to trace the source of infection. Now that bovine tubercle is eliminated for all practical purposes, the occurrence of non-pulmonary tuberculosis usually indicates a human source of infection. During the year the attendance of one of your Medical Officers at the Ante-Natal Clinic was discontinued as all patients attending had booked general practitioners for their confinements. It has always been a weakness of the Local Authority’s Ante-Natal Clinic that the doctor who examined the patient was not the doctor who dealt with any emergency which might arise at the confinement. The new system provides for undivided responsibility and continuity of supervision and treatment. The establishment of Health Visitors was increased in accordance with the Jameson Committee’s recom- mendations and provision was made for two Student Health Visitors. Recruitment, however, is by no means easy, and during the year the two posts for Students remained vacant. The appointment of a third Dental Surgeon enabled an increased service to be offered to expectant and nursing mothers and young children and an evening dental clinic was instituted for an experimental period. The outstanding feature of the year was the coming into force of the Mental Health Act, 1959. This has drastically altered the administrative approach to mental illness and mental subnormality. More emphasis is now being placed on community care but while the Act can come into force overnight it will take Local Authorities some considerable time to build up trained staff and provide the other facilities envisaged. It will probably take much longer to educate the public to accept the mentally deranged in its mi^t.