[Report 1944] / Medical Officer of Health, North Riding of Yorkshire County Council.

  • North Riding of Yorkshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1944
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1944] / Medical Officer of Health, North Riding of Yorkshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/22 (page 682)
    in the service although relieved of duty and if the need had arisen the am¬ bulance and first aid post teams could have been formed at full operational strength at short notice, even after the closure of redundant depots. The partial demobilisation involved the closure of nine first aid posts and two depots for mobile first aid units. All part-time ambulances were returned to their owners and the number of whole-time vehicles was reduced to 24 ambulances and 6 cars for sitting cases for the whole of the Riding. In consequence, much of the work which had been done by the civil defence service in transporting service and civilian patients could no longer be undertaken in this way and an additional burden was thrown on the civil ambulances. As a result the County Council decided to establish a county ambulance service. fix) County Ambulance Service. Towards the end of the year under review the County Council approved the formation of a county ambulance service to provide for the removal to hospital, maternity home or institution of patients for whose treatment the Council had accepted liability. Coupled with the provision of ambulances, sitting case cars and the necessary staff, was a scheme for assisting county district councils in the provision of an ambulance service for purposes other than the removal of cases of infectious disease. Full details of the final arrangements made will appear in the Annual Report for the year 1945. (x) Public Assistance. Owing to restriction on building operations, the partly constructed ward block for the sick at Guisborough Institution was still uncompleted at the end of 1944 and the repeated efforts of officers of the Council to obtain the necessary permission to complete the building were unsuccessful. The problem of placing the increasing number of children for whom the Public Assistance Committee were responsible was partly solved by the residential nursery at Oak Mount, Northallerton. Opened in September, 1943, the nursery can accommodate 30 children under five years of age and is a training school for the diploma of the National Society of Children’s Nurseries. In spite of staffing difficulties the nursery was fully utilised in the year under review and the rapid improvement in the physical and mental condition of the children admitted more than justified the Committee’s policy of providing such accommodation separate from public assistance institutions. (xi) Venereal Diseases. During the year under review the number of new cases resident in the Riding attending the Scarborough Clinic and the special centres in adjoining County Boroughs remained low. Single notifications received under Defence Regulation 33b numbered 72 and attempts were made to follow these up on the lines set out in Ministry of Health Circular 2896 ; in addition 5 double notifications were received. Informal action succeeded in 23 cases in persuading the named person to attend a treatment centre. A formal notice demanding the attendance of the named person was served in one case : formal notice requiring the sufferer to continue to attend for treatment was served on one person.