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Children's
care
committees.
The following-up of children found to be in need of treatment or special observation
is carried out by the school care organisation, consisting of upwards of 5,000
voluntary workers aided and supervised by a staff of paid organisers.
The voluntary workers are responsible for acquainting the school doctor with
any particular difficulties with which the family has been contending, such as
unemployment, lack of proper accommodation, or illness, any of which might help
the school doctor in determining the action desirable in any particular case. Such
action may not be confined to medical treatment under the Council's arrangements,
but may require that use be made of other ameliorative channels which are not
always under the Council's supervision.
In this way the Council's school medical service is brought into touch with other
social and medical organisations with undoubted advantages to the children and their
parents.
Cases referred
to the
N.S.P.C.C.
During 1935, 437 cases, involving 542 defects, were reported to the National
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children : these included 281 dental
defects, 122 vision cases, 55 nose and throat affections and 4 cases of ear disease
or deafness.
Aural
disease and
the acute
infections.
The influence of the acute infectious fevers on the production of aural disease
is shown by the high proportion of children who are deaf and partially deaf, in whom
the trouble can be traced originally to an attack of measles or scarlet fever. One
of the most important means therefore of preventing deafness and hardness of
hearing is the after.care of children when they are discharged from the fever hospitals.