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Nursery schools.
Dr. E. M. McVail reports that accommodation in nursery schools has, during the
year, 1933, remained unchanged, viz., 1,044 places in 15 schools. Of this accommodation,
500 places in 3 schools are maintained, and 544 places in 12 schools are aided.
Nine schools, including the 3 maintained, have a Council doctor, whilst 6 aided
schools make their own arrangements. Children in all schools are seen at least
once a year and in many once a term, special cases being examined more frequently.
All except 3 aided schools have a Council nurse, who visits daily for treatment
of minor ailments, advice as to suspected infectious disease and inspection for
cleanliness.
The three schools without a Council nurse make their own arrangements. At
one, a voluntary worker with Red Cross certificates and training in home nursing
attends daily. At another, a member of the staff with some years of V.A.D. experience
carries out the duties of the nurse. At the third the superintendent has had
much general experience with children, and when in difficulty she sends them to a
dispensary close at hand where there is a doctor in attendance every morning. The
school doctor comes in any emergency, 18 visits being paid last year for an average
roll of 47 children.
Council treament centres are available for the treatment of nursery school
children, and at most schools the parents co-operate well by having medical recommendations
carried out. Owing to changes in tabulation forms during the year, exact
figures regarding treatment at every school are not available. Children with rickets
as a rule improve markedly with the nursery school regime—fresh air, exercise,
milk, cod-liver oil and suitable food—and hospital treatment is only exceptionally
necessary. Of 341 dental cases 158 received treatment, and 30 out of 44 cases of
vision or squint. Cases for observation and for treatment were not always
differentiated in the returns, but it is evident from reports of the school doctors
that, in nearly all schools, the great majority of serious defects received treatment.
More exact details should be available next year.
Medical inspection at secondary and trade schools.
In the maintained secondary schools medical inspection has been carried out
by the school medical staff over a very long period of years.
The pupils are, in accordance with the instructions of the Board of Education,
inspected in detail on entrance, again at the age of 12, and at the age of 15 ; in the
intervening years the records of all pupils are reviewed, but a detailed examination
is only carried out when there is some special indication or request.
The figures subsequently analysed are derived only from the schools where the
medical inspections are carried out by the Council's own staff. No detailed reports
of medical inspections are received from the schools at which the pupils are examined
by the doctor appointed by the governors, but the record cards of all scholarship
children examined are sent for the school medical officer's inspection at the end of
each term.
Including students in training colleges, 13,629 pupils were examined during the
year, a decrease of 593 compared with the previous year. Amongst these the
number of routine age group examinations was 6,809 and of special examinations
6,820. Further details of the distribution of these students in the various institutions