View report page

79
view of adaptability to local needs, topographical position and complete supervision
by the school medical officer the treatment centres have more than justified their
establishment, and in relation to the Council's scheme now outnumber the hospitals
by four and a half to one, whilst the cases treated are in the proportion of eight to one.
An important part of the scheme from the beginning was the inclusion of the
services of local nursing associations for the supply of nurses whose duties include
the nurse treatment of minor ailments and home visits after operations for the removal
of enlarged tonsils, adenoids and similar defects. Now some sixteen associations
do this work at 30 centres, supplying the equivalent of the whole-time services of
57 nurses at £170 per annum each.
At first the scope of the scheme was limited to the treatment for refraction
errors and eye disease, aural defects, ringworm, minor ailments and teeth, but it
has since been extended to include the provision of instruction for stammerers.
More recently, by a special arrangement with the Metropolitan Asylums Board,
the scheme has included the residential treatment of severe rheumatism in children,
infective ophthalmia, interstitial keratitis, and the more severe aural defects requiring
operation, such as mastoid disease.
The Council is bound by law to make a charge for treatment. After trial of
the difficult method of assessment and recovery of cost according to means the
Council abandoned it in favour of a simpler plan. The charge to the parent now
made is fixed at 2s. for a major ailment, and, after a fortnight's free treatment, Is. for
a minor ailment. No charge is made for the prescription of spectacles, which is
held to be of the nature of " further inspection." Concessions are allowed whereby
for slight treatment of dental cases a charge of Is. only is made, and the school care
committees are empowered to remit the fee altogether in any case on appeal on the
ground of necessity. The average cost per case has been worked out as follows for
the current year. Refraction and eye disease, 6s. 3d. ; ear, nose and throat defect,
16s. lid. ; minor ailment, 7s. 9d. ; dental defect, 7s. 2d. ; X-ray treatment of
ringworm, 25s. 8d. Notices setting out these costs are exhibited in the centres for the
information of parents who desire to pay in full. Scholarship holders in secondary
schools are treated on the same terms as elementary school children, but fee-paying
pupils in these schools are required to pay the full charge as set out on the exhibited
notice.

Further particulars under the headings of the several ailments are as follows :—
(a) Minor ailments.—98,023 children received minor ailment treatment
during the year or 105 more than in 1928. The actual number of attendances
was 1,439,246. By the courtesy of the Metropolitan Asylums Board residential
treatment at White Oak, Swanley, Kent, has been provided for cases of
trachoma, various forms of discharging conjunctivitis and blepharitis, and
interstitial keratitis. The children are nominated by the school medical officer,
and on arrival at White Oak are allocated to separate cottages according to the
17710 F 2