Medical and sanitary report / Government of the Gold Coast.

  • Gold Coast. Medical Department.
Date:
[1918]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical and sanitary report / Government of the Gold Coast. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    33/68 (page 31)
    V.—HOSPITALS AND DISPENSARIES. 18. Owing to the financial situation no start lias yet been made with the scheme for native dispensaries alluded to in last year’s Report, Although the Medical Staff was much depleted, no less than 58,(501) natives received medical treatment at the various Government hospitals and dispensaries, and this 1 submit affords material evidence of the extent to which the services of the West African Medical Staff are appreciated by the native population, and when one remembers that the total European population of the Colony only amounted to 1,823, no less than 578 of whom arc employed by mining companies and are attended by their own medical men, it is evident that the bulk of the work done by members of the West African Medical Staff is in connection with the needs of the native population. PRISONS. Iff. The general health of the prisoners was satisfactory, although owing to the outbreak of influenza the death-rate rose from 4T3 per 1,090 in 1917 to 11 2 per 1,000. 1916. 1917. 1918. Total convicts 6,169 6,525 6,694 Total sick ... 527 990 1,391 Total deaths 26 27 85 VI.—SCIENTIFIC, 20. The report of the Acting Pathologist, which is attached as an appendix, constitutes a careful record of work carried out during the year under adverse conditions occasioned by the shortage of staff. I hope that when our strength returns to normal more assistance will be available for the Laboratory and that the Sanitation Branch will be able to take over the routine work in connection with water analysis, but this cannot be done at present as the staff of the Sanitation Branch in Accra instead of consisting, as normally, of a Senior Sanitary Officer, a Junior Sanitary Officer and a Medical Officer of Health, consists only of an Acting Senior Sanitary Officer performing also the duties of the Junior Sanitary Officer and the Medical Officer of Health. Dr. Ingram’s observations with regard to finding in the sputa of a case of influenza (and previously in other cases) of a gram negative bacillus resembling B. pestis morphologically are of especial interest in connection with the supposed outbreak of plague in Axim in December, 1917. THOS. E. RICE, Principal Medical Officer. 11 (h May, 1919.