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The Council is bound to make a charge to the parents for medical treatment.
These charges are either paid at the centre or collected by school attendance officers.
Care committees are authorised by the Council to reduce or remit the charges in
cases of hardship.
The following grants are made to centre committees:—
(a) Initial equipment—£75 for eye, ear, nose and throat centres ; £150 for
X-ray; and £100 for dental work.
(b) Initial adaptation of premises—£100.
(c) Capitation—as set out above.
(d) Additional maintenance grant towards running expenses—this is
varied according to individual circumstances.
(e) Use of premises when required for medical inspection purposes—£10.
(f) Salaries of treatment staff (temporarily reduced 1932-3):—
(i) Surgeons—£80 per annum in respect of each session a week.
(ii) Anaesthetists—£75 per annum in respect of each session a week.
(iii) Dentists—£60 per annum in respect of each session a week.
(iv) Minor ailment doctors—£66 per annum in respect of each session
a week.
The Council has 8 centres for the remedial treatment of stammering children.
There are at any one time about 200 children under this treatment. These cases
are selected as a result of school medical examinations, and nominations are accepted
from teachers. The children actually attend the centres for treatment on two
occasions a week, each visit lasting for about 50 minutes. The remainder of their
time they spend at their lessons at the ordinary schools.
Arrangements are made for children suffering from ear discharge and other
affections of the ear to be seen at 11 special ear centres by specialist aural surgeons.
The nominations for such cases are received by the divisional treatment organisers
from the minor ailment centres mainly, from school nurses, school doctors and
school teachers, etc., and from the aural sessions at the school treatment centres
and hospitals.
At these special clinics ionisation treatment is given in suitable cases.
The Council has made arrangements with various district nursing associations
whereby their nurses attend to carry out the daily nursing treatment required in
connection with minor ailments. Frequently such nurses attend the appropriate
treatment centres between the morning and afternoon school sessions, between
4 and 6 o'clock in the evening, and on Saturday mornings. These nurses work under
the direction of the medical officer in charge of the minor ailment department, and
when necessary visit the homes of the children who are under treatment. The
Council's school nurses generally visit the homes of children after operations for
tonsils and adenoids under the Council's treatment centre arrangements, but on
occasions arrangements are made for such visits to be paid by the district nurses.
Under the Council's scheme for dealing with rheumatism in school children,
arrangements have been made for children, discovered in the course of medical
inspection to be suffering from rheumatism, to be dealt with either by attendance
at one of 16 rheumatism supervisory centres, or in certain cases to be accommodated
at Queen Mary's hospital, Carshalton, High Wood hospital or Downs hospital.
With regard to the latter cases, on their discharge from these hospitals, they are
automatically followed up and re-examined as " specials " by the school doctors, on
an average three times a year up to their school leaving age, or until such time as
their medical supervision is no longer considered necessary.
Cleansing. The powers of the Council as regards the cleansing of verminous children are
permissive. Every child is seen at least once a term by a school nurse. The Council's
cleansing scheme provides for voluntary attendance, followed by compulsory
cleansing (if necessary).
Arrangements are made with 20 borough authorities for the use of their
cleansing centres and with 10 treatment centre committees, the latter being reserved
entirely for slight cases (heads). The payment made to the borough authorities is