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57
(a) Inspection Clinic.
The School Medical Officer holds his Inspection Clinic
on Tuesday and Friday mornings during School terms, when
he sees children referred to him by Nurses, Teachers, School
Attendance Officers, etc., advising as to their treatment and
disposal.
He also re-inspects children previously excluded from
School by him, and also those under treatment for minor
ailments.
(b) Minor Ailments Clinic.
The Clinic is open at 9.15 a.m. on week-days when the
School Nurses carry out the treatment of minor ailments
under the direction of the School Medical Officer. No charge
is made, but a box is provided for voluntary contributions.
(c) Ophthalmic Clinic.
Dr. Winifred Warner attends fortnightly on Wednesday
afternoons during school terms, to deal with cases referred to
her by the School Medical Officer.
Those children, who have errors of refraction, attend
the Clinic three times a day on the Monday and Tuesday
preceding the meeting, and also on the same morning for
the purpose of having atropine ointment applied by the
School Nurse.
There were 310 attendances at the 18 sessions held during
the year, 124 being new cases and 116 re-inspections.
Refractions numbered 98 and spectacles were prescribed
in 78 instances.
Parents are charged the cost price of spectacles, except
in really necessitous cases, when the Committee is prepared
to pay part or the whole cost of the same.
Children for whom spectacles are prescribed are reinspected
by the School Medical Officer when he visits the
Schools each term.
In too many instances children are found at School
without their glasses.
The excuses offered by the children are either that the
glasses are broken, lost, or that the parent says that they
are unnecessary.
This last excuse, I think, is unpardonable, but is one
that has been given on more than one occasion.
The following-up of children who have had spectacles
prescribed, causes far more work than it should, and in