[Report 1965] / Medical Officer of Health, Oldham County Borough.

  • Oldham (England). County Borough Council. nb2004302054.
Date:
1965
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1965] / Medical Officer of Health, Oldham County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The stillbirth rate continues to fall, and is now at its lowest recorded level of 14.98 compared with 15.88 in the previous year. The rate for England and Wales has also fallen from 16.4 in 1964 to 15.7 in 1965. Some improvement is also shown in the infant mortality rate for 1965, 27.48 per 1,000 total live births as against 35.04 in the previous year. This figure is still far too high when compared with the rate for England and Wales of 19.0, though only slightly above the average for County Boroughs in this region. The wastage of infant life in the industrial North West is a matter of deep concern for all Medical Officers of Health in the region and climatic and environmental conditions must play a significant part. This is also an area where, traditionally, women have always formed a goodly proportion of the total labour force. I am not prepared to believe that the standards of obstetric and medical care in this region are inferior to those in other parts of the country so we must look for the answer elsewhere. There were 262 deaths from all forms of cancer compared with 277 in 1964 but lung cancer deaths (65) were the same and therefore constitute a slightly higher proportion. The bulk of our health education efforts in this direction are still directed at the school children in an endeavour to prevent them from acquiring a habit which is only too easy to get into but so difficult to break. A serious outbreak of Poliomyelitis occurred in Blackburn during the year and caused considerable uneasiness amongst the general public. Although no case occurred within the Borough, deliberate advantage was taken of public feeling in this matter to enhance the level of immunity in the community and vaccination was offered to all comers. It was decided at the outset, both for ease in administration and with an eye to good public relations, to place no restrictions on age or place of residence, and indeed many persons living in the adjacent county areas, but working in Oldham, took advantage of the offer. Record cards were sent to these authorities by previous agreement In all, 31,209 persons received the first oral dose and 7,469 a booster dose, making a grand total of 38,678 attendances in just over 4 weeks. Ultimately 21,950 completed the course (70.3 per cent.) a reasonably high return rate though the figure of some 9,000 defaulters is a sad indication of what happens when the panic wears off. Some of these, however, may have completed the course in their place of domicile. Once again we have an illustration of expediency succeed¬ ing where health education has failed. The excercise was made much easier by the excellent facilities available in the new building, enabling us to run a number of clinics simultaneously from point of entry to exit. By happy coincidence the Mass Miniature Radiography Unit was also housed in the Department’s building at this time and, as the entrance to the unit was opposite to the exit from the polio clinic, many people decided to carry straight through and thereby gave us an enhanced attendance at the unit. In all 8,336 chest x-rays were taken compared with 4,705 in 1964. (These figures are for the “ static ” sessions only). The incidence of Typhoid in the area, which is reported in detail elsewhere in the report, occasioned some wild reporting from the press, some completely without foundation. The local press was kept informed daily of the situation and was far more circumspect than some of the national papers. Indeed, they were most helpful in disseminating information issued by the Department. It was agreed with the hospital authorities and others that only the Medical Officer of Health should give statements to the press and this helped to stabilise the situation. There is little doubt that we must expect more cases of typhoid as more and more people go abroad for their