[Report 1946] / Medical Officer of Health, Lanark County Council.

  • Lanarkshire (Scotland). County Council.
Date:
1946
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1946] / Medical Officer of Health, Lanark County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    217/218 (page 215)
    REPORT ON CROSSLAW HOME, LANARK, For the Year 1946. Maternity.—Cases are sent in here from the various Burghs and districts of the upper ward of Lanarkshire and are kept here until ready for confinement when they are sent to the County Maternity Hospital, Bellshill, as we have no accommodation for such cases here. They are mostly vagrants or women who have been working on farms or other places and had nowhere to go. After confinement and the usual time for convalescence they are sent back here and kept until they are ready for service again. Meanwhile the infants are looked after here until they are about 10 or 12 months old and then placed in a Children’s Home. Infants over 10 months and children are sent to :— Dunavon House or Smyllum Orphanage (the latter—Roman Catholics) or sometimes private bouses where they are willing to take them. Any cases of infectious disease are sent to the various Fever Hospitals or clinics in the Courty as we have no accommodation for them. This is the section that we have mostly to deal with. Men and women sent in from the roads where they have been or tramp or sent in from houses where the inmates cannot look after them. Many of the tramps who are sent in are footsore or tired or suffering from rheumatics and requiring a few days rest and nourishment. Most of them are otherwise fairly healthy and after a time they could easily do a little work either in the garden or chopping up wood, but most of them won’t work and soon weary to go on to the roads again. The cases sent in from their homes are often very ill, some with bed sores, etc., so that they need a good deal of nursing and proper feeding. A few cases are brought in suffering from Cerebral Haemorrhage with paralysis, requiring nursing and strict attention. Others are sent in because they are left all alone and can get no one to look after them and mostly require medical attention. Some are sent in and require major operations. These cases are sent to the various hospitals either Edinburgh or Glasgow for the necessary operations and afterwards sent back here generally for their life- time.