HEALTHY BRITAIN

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21789, 19 October 1940, Page 4

HEALTHY BRITAIN

Evacuation Benefits Shelter Improvements British Official Wireless RUGBY, October 17. A heartening survey of the health of Britain was given in the House of Commons by the Minister of Health (Mr Malcolm MacDonald), who said that in the disturbing situation of 1939, which included eight months of uneasy peace and four months of war, the health df the nation had been uniformly good. During the year the number of children in England and Wales who died before their first birthday was 50 in 1000, the lowest figure ever recorded. The same could be said of the maternity mortality rate, which had fallen to 2.82 in 1000 births. Tire death-rate from all forms of tuberculosis, 636 in 1,000,000 was one in 1,000,000 higher than in 1938, but less than half the figure for 1914. ‘‘The worst visitation of 1939 was the outbreak of war,” said the Minister. “At its very beginning it threw a new kind of strain upon our health services, which they have successfully withstood and which showed their adaptability to circumstances. “The evacuation of 730,000 children and 420,000 mothers from the industrial cities in Britain was a large immigration of people from its populous areas where the necessary special medical services were located. Our present trials in this much-bombed city and throughout the rest of the country are not the prelude to defeat. They are all not the death agony of Britain, but rather unpleasant, terrible, but hopeful birth pangs of the new Britain. The sojourn of London and other city children under the evacuation schemes in the country has had a most stimulating effect in their physical wellbeing. The fresh air has made them taller and heavier and more resistant to illness. We must see to it after the war that our town and city children have ample opportunities every year to go and draw fresh draughts of health and life from the lovely countryside of England.” Equal to Task Mr MacDonald, dealing with the strain of the heavy German raids in recent weeks, said; “Stretcher parties, first-aid units, ambulance teams, hospital orderlies, nurses and doctors have performed their task, often under fire, with inexpressible coolness and skill. We know now what we expected before, that they will be equal to any work, however difficult or dangerous, that is thrust upon them. “As is well known, the numbers of casualties are slight in comparison with the strenuous, wanton efforts wi licli the German airmen are making. At this moment some 550 beds in wa o> are filled by air raid casualties. It would be a mistake to feel too much assurance from the fact. It would be foolish to assume that we shall not suffer worse before the enemy is finally beaten back from London to Kent and from Kent across the Channel and from the Channel over Europe, until he is smashed on the soil of Germany herself.” Dealing with the problem of the large numbers spending the nights in shelters for protection against enemy air attack, “a problem which looms out of the winter darkness just ahead,” Mr MacDonald said: "Already some 489,000 school children, about 56 per cent of the whole school children population in the London evacuation areas, have left. At the present time mothers and children are leaving London at the rate of several thousands daily, while every few days now we are taking some hundreds of aged and infirm who are among the most difficult problems in the shelters, to be cared for in hospitals and homes found for chem in the country. Health Essential to Victory “It is of supreme importance that the night dwellers in shelters should be able to lie down in comfort and sleep the sleep of the just. That state of affairs will be achieved in the very near future when bunks have been set up. A healthy standard of sanitary equipment is being provided. A medical officer of health in each borough is being made responsible for seeing that a frequent inspection of each public shelter is made. In each shelter holding more than 500 people there will be a first-aid post, equipment and ample supplies. “In these testing days and nights, the common iieople of Britain are demonstrating once more their very fine qualities. They are showing again that organised human society can give, and we must certainly do ell in oik power to see that the care of their health is such that they possess physical strength, not only to outlast and defeat the Nazi enemy, but to overcome successfully the civilian problems they will hvea to face when peace is declared.”