The organisation of the preventative and curative medical services and hospital and laboratory systems under a Ministry of Health
1919 1919 1910s 18 pages 4. THE INDUSTRIAL HEALTH SERVICE — Prior to the war the Home Office, which is the Government Department responsible for factory hygiene, and thereby for the health of some 12,000,000 persons engaged in industry, possessed only three whole-time medical officers, all...
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
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| Language: | English English |
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London : Co-operative Printing Society
[1919?]
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/C38011A8-6377-4BD8-BACA-E88DE56192AE http://hdl.handle.net/10796/A4E3C1C4-6374-4CBA-8B3E-A224916AC575 |
| Summary: | 1919
1919
1910s
18 pages
4. THE INDUSTRIAL HEALTH SERVICE — Prior to the war the Home Office, which is the Government Department responsible for factory hygiene, and thereby for the health of some 12,000,000 persons engaged in industry, possessed only three whole-time medical officers, all others being part-time medical men called certifying surgeons, who only participated in the administration of certain factory laws regarding ''dangerous machinery,'' ''industrial diseases,'' and "employment of young persons." It is obvious that no real supervision of the health of the industrial population has been going on, and this is one of the causes for our low-grade population amongst the urban males of the country. Urban males die from phthisis at nearly twice the rate of urban females, although both are housed alike, and rural males and females die at almost the same rate. An Industrial Health Service, by seeing that healthy working conditions are established in every factory, and by detecting disease early, can alter all this. There should be established in all factories, workshops, and offices committees composed in equal proportions of representatives of the employers and the workpeople, to study the causes of sickness and accidents in the works, to appoint "accident inquiry" sub-committees, to inquire into and report on all accidents, to make regular periodical but frequent inspections, to make recommendations, and to suggest and advise suitable means for prevention of sickness and accidents. These committees should be established as an integral part of an extended system of industrial accident insurance, based upon the prevention of avoidable accidents. Such committees should have the guidance and assistance of the works doctor, or one or more medical members of this Service, which would require a medical staff of at least 1,000 men, aided in the larger factories by welfare supervisors. If such a service were instituted and illness caught in its early stages, there would occur such a decrease in prolonged illnesses that the whole system would soon pay for itself. Certain medical services under the Ministry of Munitions furnish proof of this statement, and have paid their own expenses in increased output and efficiency of the workers. The Industrial Health Service should not enter upon this work in any spirit of arbitrary dictation, but as friend and health adviser to both employers and employed. The members of its staff ought to receive special training in physiology and hygiene, and make special study of the causes of fatigue, periods and rates of working, for their work will not be limited to picking out early failure of function or disease, but will consist, in addition, in teaching the best methods of operation from the physiological point of view. 5. THE RESEARCH SERVICE. — To establish an efficient Research Service with all the necessary branches is one of the most difficult tasks ahead, requiring many years of work. Money must be spent freely, but this alone will not provide the genius capable of original research, which is even more important than money. Means must be found for seeking out the right type of person, and the first step should be a radical alteration in the whole system of medical education and in the method of selecting those who are to be the doctors and scientists of the future. It must be remembered that there is no monopoly of genius in any one class of the community, and that the science of medicine owes much of its present broad basis to Louis Pasteur, the son of a French peasant. If sufficient men and women endowed by nature with power to advance science are to be found, the doors of our universities and medical schools must be thrown more widely open. 6. THE HOSPITAL AND CLINICAL SERVICES. — No public medical service can be efficient that does not provide an adequate number of hospital beds for those requiring institutional treatment. One reason for the inefficiency of the medical 4
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