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2.
COUNTY BOROUOH OF EAST HAM - EDUCATION COMMITTEE
To: The Chairman and Members of the Education Committee.
Madam Chairman, Ladles and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my annual report on the work of the School Health
Service for the year 1968.
During the course of the year an intensified campaign was launched to encourage
good habits of dental hygiene.
Films were shown depicting the baneful effects of Indiscriminate sweet eating
between meals, the value and techniques of cleaning the teeth dally, and the tooth
saving effect of rinsing the mouth with water after meals.
The excellent films were followed by a short talk and question time. This
soon developed Into a free for all and it Is apparent from the questions that most
children up to twelve years of age get little reliable information or Instruction
In dental hygiene.
The dental report from our Principal School Dental Officer stresses the
essential similarity of work In the Local Authority Service and the National Health
Service. Any thinking person must acknowledge that a tooth cavity filled In the
head of a schoolchlld Is Just as elaborate and time-consuming a technical procedure
as when carried out by a dentist In his own surgery. To conjure up fancied
differences between the two In order to denigrate the School Dental Officer so as
to Justify lesser financial rewards Is to raise up a barrier of entry to this
branch of dental work which few new entrants will care to surmount.
Needless to say we have little expectation of recruiting more full-time
dental surgeons to our depleted service, and In consequence can do only a.minimum
of preventive and orthodontic work.
As a part of our health education programme In schools, a beginning was made
In an anti-smoking campaign. It would appear that the habit of smoking emerges
from the domestic pattern In an easy and natural fashion at a very early age.
Many boys of ten really enjoy smoking, and girls acquire the taste possibly a
little later without much heartsearchlng as to the need, the value, the Immediate
cost or the end results of this glamorized banality.
We cry out for clean air, and even legislate to achieve it, yet we foul up
our living rooms, cinemas, trains and buses with pungent tobacco smoke which sears
the eyes and excoriates the tongue and throat of smoker and non-smoker alike.
Here, undoubtedly, Is an Instance where charity begins at home for It Is
becoming a rare kindness to allow one's neighbours to enjoy the sweet air, and
practice at home will earn quicker reward tha!n precept at school.
Slowly but surely modern toilets with adjacent facilities for hand washing
are being installed In an Increasing number of our schools. This must be considered
the greatest single advance In the battle for better personal hygiene In
our borough. But must drinking fountains be Installed In the same room where
water closets, urinal stands and wash hand basins are fixed? Any thinking
person would agree, the potential danger of contamination of the drinking water
Jets could be greatly enhanced by this unwholesome contiguity, and In any case
should scholars be encouraged to slake their thirst In the sanitary annexe?
I am aware that similar drinking fountains are so sited In certain public
buildings, nevertheless I would urge the total abolition of this practice In