Health department

“ When pensions can be earned by medical officers of health and by all medical men on the public health staff, their position will become more attractive for men of good standing; and this reform has become more important in view of the steadily increasing complexity of the medical work now undertaken in a large public health department. It will include inter alia the following officers and activities: superintendent medical officers of health; district medical officers of [Pg 65] health; tuberculosis officers; medical officers of maternity and child welfare centres, of venereal disease centres ”

“ The health department of a modern city is charged with a double duty: it has to care for cases of disease, and it has to suggest and enforce laws to keep the city sanitary. The former task—the treatment of sickness—is much more widely recognized as the proper function of the medical profession ”

“ The Health Department in its varied work of recording the marriages, births, and deaths, preventing and caring for contagious diseases, disinfecting, sanitary inspection, and the abatement of nuisances, meat and milk inspection, employs a corps of one hundred and thirty men, besides the special summer corps of fifty physicians and the fruit-inspectors and extra disinfectors—requiring an annual appropriation of $250,000. ”

“ The Health Department.—The department of public health has duties that are of vital importance. Sewerage systems, sanitation, and the water-supply are the chief objects of its inspection. Health officers also have powers which enable them to detect and prohibit the sale of impure foods. The milk-supply should receive its particular attention, for the purity of this product is an important matter. The enforcement of strict health regulations in the crowded tenement districts of large cities is very difficult; but the neglect of these matters by city officials is nothing less than criminal. ”

“ The appropriation for the Pennsylvania State Health Department is about 48 cents per capita. Arkansas makes none at all, the State of New York spends about 1.7 cents; Massachusetts, 4.2; Florida, 10; Indiana, 1.8; Kansas, 2.7; Virginia, 1.9, and so on.
Municipalities.—We have many cities with active and efficient health officers, but there is not a city in this country with an adequately equipped and financed health department. Not one of them has sufficient financial support to successfully perform its task, which must be measured by the preventable sick and death list in each community. ”

“ The great city of New York has an ably administered health department, but it has only thirty inspectors to supervise over 27,000 food dispensing establishments. The request of the health officer for an inspection force of 209 men has been steadily ignored for years. ”

“ Dissemination of Information Through Providers- The Secretary, acting through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shall develop and implement a plan for the dissemination of health promotion and disease prevention information consistent with national priorities, to health care providers who participate in Federal programs, including programs administered by the Indian Health Service, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, and the Health Resources and Services Administration, and Medicare and Medicaid. ”

“ Home visitation can be carried out by nurses attached to the dispensary or by inspectors of the public health department. The latter will usually be more competent in detecting and remedying sanitary defects in the home; the former in encouraging the patient to carry out the needed requirements in personal hygiene and nursing. Many visitors are equally competent in both directions; and as the number of women specially trained in tuberculosis work increases this will more generally be the rule. ”

“ Having established the willingness—even eagerness—of parents to do all in their power to remove defects that handicapped their children, it was obviously the duty of the health department so to organize its work that it could insure the education of parents. The new Bureau of Child Hygiene gives foremost place to instruction of parents in care of babies, in needs of school children, and in the importance of physical examination when enlisting in the industrial army. ”

“ We believe that every State should have wisely ordered health laws, with officers empowered to enforce them, and also that a National Department of Health should be created, comporting with the dignity and importance of the cause. This department should work effectively for the promotion of the physical and hence the moral and intellectual health of the people. ”

“ COMMISSIONER OF HEALTH FOR NEW YORK CITY, WHICH HAS THE MOST THOROUGHLY ORGANIZED CITY HEALTH DEPARTMENT IN THE UNITED STATES
Under the State boards, in the well-organized States, are the county boards and officers, who report to the State boards and may call upon the latter for advice or help in time of epidemic or danger.
In certain circumstances the State officials may arbitrarily take charge. This is done in Indiana, in Maryland, in Pennsylvania, and in Massachusetts. The last State not only grants extraordinary powers to its health executive, Dr. ”

“ The new Department of Public Health should be given administrative supervision over public sanitation, hospitals, asylums, clinics, dispensaries, and other institutions that minister to the health of the people. ”

“ These people are blindly following certain individuals who designate the regular profession as a medical trust, and accuse the thousands of noble men and women who are devoting their lives to the alleviation of human ills of a desire to monopolize medical practise. The establishment of a federal department of health would mean pure food, pure medicine, control of plagues and epidemics, the advancement of medical science and through it the improvement of the health and increase of material wealth of the nation. ”

“ The department of health may, from time to time make rules and regulations fixing the time of rendering, and defining the form of returns and reports to be made to said department by the office of chief medical examiner of the city of New York, in all cases of death which shall be investigated by it ”

“ Where the public health administration department fails to report cases of occupational diseases or accidents of occupational disease hazards, as required by regulations, the public health administration department at the next higher level shall order it to make rectification, circulate a notice of criticism, and give it a disciplinary warning. ”

“ Education is the watchword, and where emphasis is laid upon the preservation of health rather than upon the treatment of disease, the nurses constitute an important factor. Appreciation of this is recorded by the Commission which drafted the new health law for New York State (1913) . “The advent of trained nursing,” says its report, “marks not only a new [46] era in the treatment of the sick, but a new era in public health administration.” This Commission also created the position of Director of the Division of Public Health Nursing in the state department of health. ”

“ The board has jurisdiction over all matters of public health and is composed of the following sub-departments: contagious diseases; medical inspection of schools: sanitary inspection; food inspection; inspection of milk and dairy farms; statistics; municipal laboratories; the municipal medical service. The sanitary inspection department covers the general sanitation of the dwellings, outhouses, lanes, etc. ”

“ Under these circumstances the health is not, and cannot be, anything else than extremely good; the large number of old who are still robust and in employment, the experience and evidence of all the physicians who practise amongst the mill population, the result of the reports of the district physician, but above all, the healthy state they were in during several epidemics, and also the small proportion of deaths as seen in the parish register, all afford the most striking evidence of the fact of their healthiness. ”

“ For a very considerable period a movement has been gathering strength, especially among the members of the medical profession, in favor of a concentration of the instruments of the National Government which have to do with the promotion of public health. In the nature of things, the Medical Department of the Army and the Medical Department of the Navy must be kept separate. ”

“ New Code of Regulations for Sanitary Service of Army, 1857-9 The second sub-commission was appointed for re-organizing the New Code of army medical department, and for framing a code of regulations for Regulations the hospital and sanitary service of the army. This commission found that, according to existing practice, no provision was made for systematically caring for the soldier's health, but only for his sickness. The chief recognised function of the army medical officer was attending men in hospital ”

“ The Public Health Service, which is a branch of the Treasury Department, was formerly called the Marine Hospital Service, and was originally devoted only to caring for sick and disabled seamen of the American merchant marine. Today it is safeguarding the health of everybody in the country. It maintains quarantine stations and offices for the medical inspection of immigrants at the principal seaports; establishes domestic quarantines, when necessary, to prevent the spread of disease from state to state; investigates and suppresses epidemics ”

“ An important step in that direction is the proposed formation of a Department of Health under the Federal Government, as contemplated in the bill so ably championed by Senator Owen at the last session of Congress. Our race is a prey to epidemics which extend far beyond State boundaries, arising from causes that often require long-continued and expensive investigations for their determination and their counteraction ”

“ It considered a vigorous campaign of education the most necessary step for the control of these diseases. It recommended, however, that all cases encountered in dispensaries, hospitals, juvenile and municipal courts, penal institutions, maternity hospitals, rescue homes, and all places of detention, should be officially reported. The commission also urged that the city contribute to the support of free dispensaries for the treatment of these diseases and that the Department of Health make tests for the diagnosis of these diseases without charge. ”

“ Article 95
⁠Health departments of people's governments at the county level and above shall actively cultivate medical and healthcare industry associations, maximize their role in medical, healthcare and health promotion work, support their participation in the development of industry management practices and technical standards, and in medical and healthcare evaluation, assessment and review work. ”

“ The passing of sanitary laws, and the granting to a certain department the power to enforce these laws, will not ensure good public health unless the public at large supports those laws intelligently, and it can only do this through State and municipal sanitary organizations. ”

“ The inspection for contagious diseases, the examination for physical defects, the follow-up work by nurses and physicians, are in charge of the department of health. Physical training and athletics for elementary and high schools, winter recreation centers, and vacation playgrounds are under directors and assistants employed by the board of education. ”

“ Initial triage, EMT, and decontamination are accomplished on the "dirty" side of the hot line. Life-sustaining care is rendered, as required, without regard to contamination. Normally, the senior health care sergeant performs initial triage and EMT at the BAS. Secondary triage, ATM, and patient disposition are accomplished on the clean side of the hot line. When treatment must be provided in a contaminated environment outside the CPS, the level of care may be greatly reduced because medical personnel and patients are in MOPP Level 3 or 4. However, lifesaving procedures must be accomplished. ”

“ Whilst experience gives little promise even of inquiries from such a body as Boards of Health without responsibilities, still less of any important results from the mere representations of such bodies separated from executive authority, I would submit for consideration what appears to me a more advantageous application of medical science, viz., by uniting it with boards having executive authority. ”

“ Centers across the United States operate around the clock and respond to approximately three million calls every year from the public, as well as from health care providers, 911 public-safety access points, health departments, law enforcement, first responders, and other safety agencies. ”

“ LOCAL ORGANIZATION FOR HEALTH PROTECTION The absence or weakness of local organization for health protection has been one of the obstacles to progress in physical well-being in the United States. Driven by an appalling death rate and frequent epidemics, our large cities have developed health departments which in many cases have proved very effective. ”

“ The competent health departments shall immediately organize the disease prevention and control institutions and immunization entities to take necessary emergency handling measures, and at the same time report the case to the health departments of the superior people's governments. ”

“ An adequate staff of physicians, investigators and trained workers [109] in every department should provide as high a standard of efficiency as that of the best general and special hospitals, or that in any field of medical science. Ample facilities should be available for the treatment of mental and nervous conditions, the clinical study of patients on the wards, and scientific investigation in well-equipped laboratories, with a view to prevention and cure of mental disease and addition to the knowledge of insanity and associated problems. ”