Heilbrigðisskýrslur - 01.12.1951, Side 246

1951
— 244
14. Accidents. The figure of deaths
by accidents (including suicide) is
0.76 per 1000 of the whole popula-
tion..
1947 1948 1949 1950 1951
Deaths by Suicide 10 11 16 17 18
Deaths by
other Violence 100 81 59 92 92
The distribution of deaths by acci-
dents is shown on p. 141.
15. Care of Infants may be said to
be fairly good, the great majority of
the children being breast-fed. The
midwives have made out a report
(table XIII) concerning 4062 infants
born during the year (the verified
total number of births being 4061,
stillbirths included). Reports on the
nutrition of infants were submitted in
3995 cases which accordingly were
grouped as follows (Reykjavík figures
in brackets):
Breast-fed ...... 93.9 p.c. (99.2 p.c.)
Breast-
and bottle-fed 3.2 — (0.1 — )
Bottle-fed only . 2.9 — ( 0.7 — )
16. Sanitary Officials and Workers
(cf. table I). The total number of
iicensed medical men in Iceland was
187 in 1951. There are 52 medical
districts. The number of midwives
holding appointments is 156 while
the number of districts is about 200.
Trained nurses do little service out-
side hospitals. Dentists are very few
(31 in the whole country). Trained
dispensing chemists are only in the
larger towns, in villages and in the
country the district medical officers
have a small drug store.
17. General Insurance. The National
Insurance Act from 1936 (amended
serveral times) covers besides disea-
ses: accident, disablement and old
age insurance. Until this year only in
all urban districts insurance against
loss of health was obligatory, in rural
districts the parish councils could
after a general vote had been taken
and a majority for it obtained, adopt
compulsory insurance. By an amend-
ment passed by the Icelandic parlia-
ment of the National Insurance Act
Iast year sickness insurance was made
obligatory for the whole population
from 1 October 1951.
At the end of the year 89434 per-
sons were registered insured under
the National Insurance Act, organi-
sed in 225 sickness-benefit societies,
children under 16 years being insured
with their parents or foster-parents.
18. Food and Nutrition. Public in-
spection of food has taken place in
this country since 1936, when the
Food Adulteration Act came into
force. This Act provides for com-
prehensive control of all articles of
food and other nutritients. This in-
spection is in the hands of the dist-
rict medical officers of health and the
sanitary commmittees, in co-operation
wiht the local police authorities. The
chemical analysis work is done at the
public Chemical Analysis Institute in
Reykjavík; 284 samples of food (milk
and milk products excepted) were
submitted for analysis in 1951, out of
which number 47 were found to be
not up to the standards (16.5 per-
cent).
19. Hospitals, large and small, in
1951 numbered 48 in the whole coun-
try, with 1400 beds, or 9.6 beds per
1000 inhabitants, 42 of this number
being general hospitals, with 819 beds
(5.6 per 1000). In the tuberculosis
sanatoria there are 257 beds (about
1.8 per 1000). Of other special ho-
spitals may be mentioned: 1 lunatic
asylum, 1 leprosarium and 1 small
epidemic hospital in Reykjavik. The
hospitalization days in all hospitals
amounted to 3.1 per head for the
whole population: in the general ho-
spitals the figure was 1.7 and in the
sanatoria 0.67. Added to this there is
always a considerable number of tu-
berculosis patients in the general ho-
spitals (cf. also tables XVII—XVIII).
Patients in general hospitals this
year may be classified as follows: