View report page

11
Mental Deficiency.—Children who can benefit by instruction
in a special non-residential school are sent to the school in
I'inohley, which is shared by Fincliley, Wood Green and Hornsey.
Other Conditions. — Ninety-three children suffering from
minor injuries made 304 attendances at the Clinic during the
year, and 217 children with other skin diseases came for treatment.
Altogether during 1924 there were 1,902 children who
came to the Minor Ailment Clinic for treatment by the Doctor
and Nurse; these children made 5,981 attendances. The Minor
Ailment Clinic is doing very good work, and is providing medical
treatment and advice for children who otherwise would be without
it. The children who attend the Minor Ailment Clinic come
from poor homes where medical treatment by a private doctor
would be a luxury that could not be afforded. Many of the
ailments treated and cured at the Clinic are of a nature which
parents tend to regard as trifling and of no importance; and, if
ii were not for the Clinic, no medical treatment would be obtained
for the child with the sore eyes, discharging ears and
other minor ailments. The following are some remarks made
by Dr. G. Dawson Dick, who has been attending school children
at our clinic during the past twelve months:—
"Elsewhere it will be seen that the Borough has every
reason to congratulate itself on a remarkably low infant mortality
rate. It will be readily understood that this very fact throws
a still greater responsibility on the Borough to safeguard the
well-being of the child, both in infancy and school life, so as
to secure as far as possible a healthy and efficient adult.
In the supervision of the child, linking-up Infant Welfare
Centres with the medical inspection of school children, no department
is more important than that dealing with minor ailments.
Mostly these are conditions for which the mother would not take
the child to her private doctor, nor are they suitable conditions
for the out-patient department of the hospital, where they
necessarily tend to be crowded out by children requiring more
urgent and definite surgical or medical treatment. Mostly
these children are brought direct by the mother, or are referred
to the clinic by the teachers, or the school doctor at the time
of medical inspection.