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98
Medical Inspection.
The statistical tables appear in the appendix under
Table I.
It will be noted that 1,777 children came under
routine inspection and no less than 9,355 other inspections
were made of children attending school clinics and
of children at school. Routine inspection continues to
be carried out at school in three age groups, but most
of the work of investigation is done at the school clinics,
which are held daily at the North Clinic, Station Road,
and the South Clinic, Princes Plain.
Much medical time is taken up by the examination
of the child with a special defect—the mentally retarded
child, the physically defective child, the blind child
the deaf and the maladjusted child. Children are also
examined before the issue of the necessary employment
certificates.
I am glad to say that parents show a great interest
in the examinations, are regular in their attendance at
the routine inspections at the schools, and only on rare
occasions do we receive from them refusals to submit
their children to examination.
I am not, however, satisfied that the routine inspection
at school fulfils its purpose. Unless one can obtain
a true view of the physiological functioning of the child
the routine medical examination cannot be fully satisfactory.
It certainly brings to light abnormalities, the
greater of which appear to be defects of the nose, throat
and vision; it certainly also brings to our notice defective
children who have not been brought by their parents to
the school clinic, and I believe I can safely say this:
that once we have discovered a defect in a child, either
of a major or minor character, adequate steps are taken
to see that that defect is remedied, either by the childs
attendance at the school clinic or at the special clinics
or by reference at the parent's wish to the child's own
private doctor.