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SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE
In the following pages will be found a record of the work of the
school health service for the past year. The work of the specialist
clinics is fully detailed and affords ample evidence of the integration of
local authority and hospital board services. The same is true of the
rheumatism supervisory centre.
The record of the two schools for handicapped children is one of
steady progress. At Vale Road School for Physically Handicapped
Children there has been an expansion in the facilities available for cases
of cerebral palsy and a special consultant appointed to advise on the
work. The needs of the very smallest of these handicapped children
have still to be met but it is hoped to do this in the new accommodation
for which building approval has been given.
At the School for Deaf Children the expansion of nursery class facilities
has been of the utmost value. The opening of a unit for partially deaf
children in 1955 will go far to solve the problems of a group of children
who did not really fit in either at the school for the deaf or at the ordinary
school. Higher education for deaf children has always been a problem
as Mary Hare Grammar School has only been able to admit a small
proportion of children considered suitable.
This year has seen the coming to fruition of plans for a Technical
School in Surrey, and several children from the Tottenham School
have been entered for scholarships there.
Routine medical examination of school children has continued. The
enthusiastic attendance of parents is a tribute to their belief in its value.
The commonest complaint of a serious nature is one of maladjustment,
often associated with broken or unhappy homes. But the children on
the whole are healthy, happy and well-clad. The function of routine
medical inspection today is no longer one of merely segregating fit from
unfit, but an attempt to assess individual optimum health of the children
attending this periodic health overhaul. Details of defects found at
routine medical inspections are set out in the Appendix.
It is hoped that the introduction of B.C.G. vaccination will further
help to preserve the health of our young people when they leave school.
Dental Service
Mr. V. Sainty, l.d.s., Area Dental Officer reports:—
"The staff at the end of 1954 consisted of eight full-time and two
part-time dental officers, and one part-time orthodontist. One of the
full time and the two part-time dental officers and the orthodontist
were appointed at various dates during the last six months of the
year. There was one resignation of a full-time dental officer early in
the year and some months elapsed before this post could be filled.
"At present the orthodontic clinic is worked seven sessions per
week and it is intended that this shall be increased to a full-time
service should the scope of the work justify it, but it is too soon yet
to know when this may be.
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