View report page

4
GENERAL.
The object of our School Medical Service is to secure that
every child shall be reasonably healthy during its school life,
so that it may be able to profit by instruction and be able later
to earn its own living. To attempt to teach an ailing child is
a waste of public money, and to put a sick child later on to the
labour market to struggle against a heavy handicap of invalidism
is merely to recruit a population for the workhouse infirmary.
By inspection of children when they enter school, and again
when they are aged 8-9 years, and yet again when they are 12-14
years of age, we are able to detect the early signs of disease;
and by means of our school clinic we are enabled to have this
early disease remedied. The body of a child is plastic, and
responds very readily to appropriate treatment. Owing to this
repeated inspection and to the opportunity for adequate treatment,
it is few, if any, children who pass through the critical
years of 5-14 with physical conditions which are capable of being
remedied.
Very many of the children who enter our public elementary
schools have benefited by previous attendance with their mothers
at one of our Maternity and Child Welfare Centres. The records
of these children are passed on to the School Medical Service,
and we have therefore in many instances complete medical
records of school children from birth. It would be logical to pass
these records to the panel practitioner for his enlightenment;
but unfortunately a gap exists of two years between the time
that the child leaves school and the time when he joins the State
Insurance Scheme. During these two years the growing boy or
girl is under no definite medical care, and the health records are
of use to no one. It is certainly regrettable that during two
important years of life the State should take no means of safeguarding
the child's health, and that after fourteen years of
Municipal and State effort the child, at a difficult period of existence,
should be without adequate medical supervision. This
criticism does not, of course, apply to those children who enter
a secondary school, nor to those in residential institutions: and
if ever we have continuation schools or classes for the growing
boy or girl together with adequate medical supervision of these
we shall no doubt further improve the health of our young adults.