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MINOR AILMENTS CLINIC
Children suffering from minor ailments may be referred to minor ailment clinics
where they are seen by a nurse and/or doctor and the appropriate treatment given. There
are 8 such clinics situated in school treatment centres in the borough. Use of these
clinics is gradually declining.
HEALTH EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS
During the year a system has been followed in which flexibility of syllabus and
adaptation to the needs of each individual school has been the theme.
Thus, although in the main the health education officer and the health visitors
involved have preferred to work with small groups presenting applied biology by discussion
group methods, in actual fact the general picture has been that they have "fitted in"
with what was felt to be the need of each individual hegdteacher.
In spite of other agencies also working in some schools, invitations to the Health
Department to teach have continued to be in excess of the available staff.
Assistance was given on request to one school with regard to the preparation of
C.S.E. examination syllabuses, to another with a Newsom course and at a third school a
course for a Certificate in Maternity and Child Welfare was inaugurated.
The following subjects were dealt with at schools during the year:-
Subject Occasions No. participating
General Health Topics 220 2,802
Mothercraft 22 407
Sex Education and Venereal Disease 40 429
Smoking and Lung Cancer 12 132
INFECTIOUS DISEASE IN SCHOOL
Notification is made by head teachers of pupils absent from school on account of
infectious and other illnesses. Where the notifications from any particular school
warrant further investigation special visits are made and any necessary investigations
carried out, including the taking of specimens for bacteriological examination, to ascertain
the sources of, and contain, the outbreak.
Notifications were received of 2,173 children so absent, mumps being the reason for
the largest number viz. 704.
83.