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5
During the autumn months, a visit, which proved extremely interesting,
was paid by members of the Committee to Stanmore, the country branch of
the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, where several of our children were
in residence, undergoing treatment.
On referring to Table I, it will be seen that the numbers in the second age
group, namely 8 to 9 years, are relatively heavy: this is due to the fact that
this particular group of children was not completed in the previous year and
was completed in this; in addition, the whole group, with the exception of
those at one school, was again subjected to routine medical inspection.
Routine medical inspection is so arranged that the infants are inspected
in the summer months: the attendance is much better then than in the colder
months, more particularly among the young children, hence the work of
inspection is facilitated.
To arrange for medical inspection at an Infants' Department and find
that 30 per cent, are absent creates unavoidable delay.
It will be realised by the members of the Committee that much more
attention has been devoted to the individual child in recent years, and that
in many of my monthly reports, individual children are named as requiring
some particular attention:—surgical boots, convalescent home treatment as
afforded by the open-air school, operative orthopaedic treatment, residential
treatment for the child suffering from rheumatic heart disease, etc.
The clerical work involved has grown considerably at the same time and,
unfortunately, we do not obtain the co-operation of some parents in obtaining
details—financial and otherwise—for presentation to the Committee.
Many of the parents are thankful for the assistance the Committee give,
but other parents appear to be wholly indifferent.
Then there are the groups of children who attend special schools—the
mentally defective, the physically defective, the blind and the deaf.
The question arises—are we doing the best by sending these children to
special schools and so segregating them from the more normal children ?
It is not an easy problem, but the more I see of the mentally and the
physically defective, the more I have come to the conclusion that segregation