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Progress has been made in spite of difficulties of staffing (which I must mention
later) in the health visiting section and their health education activities expanded. The
requests for ante-natal preparation classes increased and the demand goes on increasing.
The change in emphasis from the physical to the psychological in the teaching of expectant
mothers has aroused a good deal of interest and the Pierre Vellay method is becoming
accepted as the method of choice.
I must mention too the progress made in food hygiene in the Borough, not only in
the teaching of the bakery staffs in their own bakeries but also that the Rush Green
Technical College invited our co-operation in running courses for food handlers. Towards
the end of the year discussions were held on the running of a Diploma Course for
senior people engaged in the food industry which it is hoped will start in 1963.
Some progress has also been made in health education in schools particularly in
relation to talks on cancer and smoking.
Having mentioned some of the achievements during the year I must now draw
attention to some of the difficultes that have been experienced. The main one is that of
shortage of health visiting staff and the fact that the County policy following the lead
given by the Ministry of Health some years ago, has turned away from the use of school
nurses in an attempt to staff the health visiting and school nursing service entirely with
health visitors and clinic nurses. This has meant that the health visitors in short supply
already, have had to attempt to cover wider areas in their visiting and the clinic nurses
were not allowed to visit people in their own homes. This increased staffing difficulties
in spite of re-adjustment of staff duties. In my view there is need now to look very
carefully at the staffing of the department and to consider the introduction of social
workers as members of the health department team.
One other aspect of health education which I must also mention is the need for
constant refreshing and for constant revision of teaching techniques. If the staff is to
carry out group teaching in an effective manner using modern teaching aids it must be
given the opportunity of refreshing and looking at new methods of putting over health
education to different groups. Much of our health education involves the teaching of
health to adult audiences. This is a very different matter from the teaching of health to
school children in schools. The child in school is a member of a captive audience whereas
the adult can come and go as he pleases. If the teaching is not done in an attractive,
interesting and informative manner it will fail to attract and to keep audiences.
One great difficulty experienced during the year was that the health visitors were
overworked and over-oppressed with requests for help with personal problems which
streamed into the department. Many of these problems related to mental health. These
are time consuming and exhausting to deal with and not easily solved.
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