Page 162 - Bahrain Gov Annual Reports (III)_Neat

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THE FUTURE OF DISPENSARIES AND PUBLIC HEALTH.

Muharraq has always been the main bastion. The resident doctor there has a turnover
of out-patients often exceeding half those treated in Manama. Apart from this, other out-dispensaries
arc with difficulty maintained, owing to lack of staff and consistently running transport. The main
criticism in the medical work in Bahrain made by doctors and His Highness Shaikh Saliman is, that
it is too much centralised in Manama, to the detriment of outside dispensaries and public health
measures. This is true. Preventive medicine and out-clinics should be run at an equally high
level as the Hospital work. Its aim is as important. Until more key staff arc forthcoming however,
this has been largely postponed. But certain efforts have been made, more especially over anti­
malaria.
Public health administration came into being in England largely at the beginning of the last
century, and again made enormous strides after the Great War. Maternity, infant welfare, and
school medical work are now perhaps its more important branches, specialised to a high degree •
Milk and water supplies are largely controlled. Bad sanitation and its diseases Typhoid, Dysentery,
and Cholera, are now almost unknown. All infectious diseases are notifiable. Tuberculosis is sought
out at the source by house to house visits. Its treatment is effected in sanatoria and rehabilitation
centres. Illegitimate children, the blind and deformed, the poor and the aged, are all accounted
for in special homes and centres.
In Bahrain, as soon after the war as possible, the beginnings of similar measures should be
made and expanded year by year. A town water supply should be first laid down. Side by side
with that, improved sanitation and an expert to supervise it. Indiscriminate squatting would become
a legal offence, and disposal of city refuse rendered innocuous and better controlled.
All Bahrain Government schools should be regularly inspected and treated by a medical staff
trained for this alone. Maternity, infant welfare, and health visiting, would become a special ever
expanding department. These two medical bodies alone would radically change the health and
outlook of the next generation of Bahrain.

Certain institutions to be set up, now badly needed, would come into force for tuberculosis,
lepers, and lunatics.

Lastly, the villages. Travelling dispensaries are needed to operate from certain main centres
probably Manama, Muharraq, and Rifa’a. His Highness has himself suggested that a resident
doctor be placed in Rifa’a to form a centre there, and to be responsible for visiting the main villages
south, east and west—such as, Sitra, Karazkan, Zillag, Ali and Bori.
With the achievement of all these measures, a valuable check on the background and treatment
of all future in-patients in the hospital would be attained, and particularly on observing their after-
treatment when they return to their homes. And from thenceforth, slowly but surely, the cause
of disease, the disease itself, and the dangers of its recurrence, would be reduced to the minimum
possible.

FEMALE STATISTICS 1363.

Report by Dr. I. M. A. Doeg, Lady Medical Officer.
Out-Patients. New Cases. Return Cases. Total.
Hospital .. 7.979 14,446
Dispensaries 13.637 22,126
36,572