BRITAIN'S HEALTH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 September 1938, Page 7

BRITAIN'S HEALTH

STEADY PROGRESS RECORDED. MATERNAL MORTALITY RATE LOWEST KNOWN. In the nineteenth annual report of the Ministry of Health, it is revealed that the maternal mortality rate for 1937 for England and Wales was 3.1 per 1000 births —the lowest' figure yet recorded. The infantile mortality rate was 58 per 1000 live births,, only 1 per 1000 above the record low figure of 1935. “We know in our individual experience that health pays, and the bone and muscle of a nation are perhaps one of its soundest and safest investments,” says Mr Elliot. “We cannot afford to lose every year nearly 2000 mothers and more than 35,000 children under the age of one. We cannot view with complacency an annual death roll of nearly 30,000 persons from tuberculosis and nearly 70,000 from cancer. “These are facts to be kept in mind, even though cholera and typhus have been extinguished and smallpox nearly so, and even though in the lifetime of many now living the expectation of life at birth has increased by almost 20 years.” The various services administered by the Ministry involved an expenditure in the year ended March 31, 1938, of £147,300,000. The crude death rate from’ tuberculosis per 1,000,000 of the population in England and Wales in 1937 was 695, as compared with 692 in 1936 and 718 in 1935. The year under review was the last in the original five-year-plan of slum clearance. By March 31 last orders for slum clearance, including 218,167 bouses, had been submitted by local authorities —10,667 in excess of the total clearance area programme originajly formulated in 1933. Since the war over 3,500,000 new houses had been provided in England and Wales, of which over 1,000,000 had been built by local authorities and over 2,500,000 by private enterprise. Government subsidies for housing amounted 1 to £14,715,000 during the year—an increase of £560,000 compared with the previous year. Other facts and figures mentioned show:— There were £69,378 registered blind persons in England and Wales, of whom 22,000, who were unemployable, were over 70 years of age. Public analysts examined 151,370 samples of food and drugs —a record number--and reported against 8.401. Loans sanctioned for public baths and swimming pools, including openair baths, amounted to £1,003,754, compared with £790,975 in the previous year. Dr. Edith Summerskill, M. P.. maintains in an article that if vigorous action were taken many more lives could be saved in childbirth. She says that of the mothers who died and could have been saved, lack of antenatal care accounts for 15 per cent, error of judgment 19 per cent, lack of facilities 3.7 per cent, negligence on the part of the patient 7.7 per cent. No effort should be spared by the Government, both central and local, to put into operation immediately the recommendations which were made six years ago in order to reduce the maternal mortality rate. Every year of delay brings death to over 2000 women in their prime of life.