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2. CO-ORDINATION.
Co-ordination of the School Medical and Maternity and Child Welfare
Departments is somewhat in the same position as last year. Use is still
being made of the Sanitary Inspectors who put right the items that are found
wanting by the Nurses in the discharge of their duties. The work is bearing
good fruit. The minor ailments clinics, both at Pymmes Park and Croyland
Road, leave much to be desired. The arrangements at Pymmes Park could
not be arranged in a better way to take up the time of the officers. The
facilities at the disposal of the officers, which we are trying to remedy,
could not be worse than they are and it is to be hoped that some new
arrangement will be made by the Education Committee for the treatment
of the children. There is no doubt that the lack of space devoted to both
clinics to the numbers of children who attend is fraught with great evil to the
children and also to the officers. Crowded together in such a small space it
is impossible, first of all, for the officers to avoid infection. As a result they
become ill and are absent from duty. In the second, place the children who
attend are bound likewise to infect one another, particularly in the case
of impetigo. Attempts have been made to give each school a set time but,
with 150 to 180 children crowded into each session with a waiting-room of
not more than 12 by 14 feet, it can readily be understood the difficulties that
confront our service. It is to be hoped, therefore, that drastic changes will
be made in the accommodation, not only for clinics but officers, within the
very near future. The Hazelbury Dental Clinic (originally intended for a
period of six months) has now reached its second year and so far little effort
is being made to replace it with a large modern dental clinic. This room was
intended in the first place for a store-room for the Hazelbury School. Let
us hope that when the Committee are aroused to the necessity of building,
they will, in future, build clinics worthy of the name. The Croyland Road
Clinic, which is relatively new (being built in 1928), has a waiting-room
space that could not have been considered seriously as such. In the past
the consulting-room and treatment-room were in one, and the mother who
attends with her child has, of necessity, to consult the doctor in the presence
of nurses, patients and other parents. It is to be hoped that in the case of
this clinic, the conscience of the Education Committee will be roused to give
to the parent of the humble schoolchild the same facilities that they themselves
would expect from their private practitioners.
3. SCHOOL HYGIENE.
The greater proportion of the schools in Edmonton are well-built, but
it is to be regretted that even in the most modern the establishment of a
medical room has been reglected and the staff are forced, in the discharge
of their duties, to carrry out medical, dental and head inspections, in a school
that is not yet two years old, in a store-room. In some instances head
inspections are carried out in open corridors; in other schools in the class-room
behind blackboards, and in nearly all cases without heating. I would like
to draw attention to the sites of these schools and their relationship. At the
present time I come across children attendng one school and they actually
pass another school. Evidently no attention was given to the choice of site.
Great hardship is given to many children and some parents because of this
arrangement. We have yet in our midst older schools that sadly need
alteration and extension, but we are satisfied to put up with the difficulties in
the older school but it should not be necessary in the case of modern schools.
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