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112
Dr. D.J. Gordon-Smith, Assistant County Medical Officer and recently
Deputy Medical Director of the Central Council for Health Education,
reports as follows upon the general aspects of health education:-
"At a meeting of Area Medical Officers at County Hall on 22nd
November 1962 under the chairmanship of Dr. Stewart, it was accepted
that the subject of health education should be an important facet of
the work of departments of public health. In most of the Essex areas,
health education has been in progress for many years. The interest
of County Hall is demonstrated by the fact that there is an appointed
full-time health education officer with assistants, plus office and
storage accommodation, but these officers cannot hope to cover
adequately a large county such as Essex, nor can the material
available be immediately accessible to all areas when needed.
Thus it seems essential that each area should build up its own
resources and make full use of its own personnel.
As in other areas, IIford has been concerned with health education
for some time. Major difficulties have been the lack of suitable
equipment, and the lack of a single officer with authority to mobilise
the available potential of health educators, and assume responsibility
for building up stocks of useful material. Some minor examples of
these difficulties may be quoted. The main office and each clinic
has stocks of posters and leaflets. Many of the posters are dilapidated
or out of date. There is a dearth of adequate storage space. There
are few facilities for displaying a poster properly, and the posters
are sometimes used in a haphazard fashion. One clinic may have a
dozen posters on view, each on a different topic. Some clinic nurses
and health visitors have little or infrequent contact with the main
office, and are just not aware of new material on health education
that may have become available. This applies also to assistant
medical officers of health. Any programme of planned health education
must aim to keep all health department staff aware of all new
productions, and encourage them to use them at every opportunity.
Opportunities abound. At every child welfare and ante- and pestnatal
clinic there is the invaluable person to person education of
the mother by the nurse or doctor. Every visit to a home by a public
health inspector or health visitor should be an opportunity for observation
of unhealthy habits and practices, and concomitant education.
In addition, good posters should be displayed at clinics, and literature
made available in the form of booklets and leaflets. The routine
medical inspection should be half inspection and half advice. No
school boy should leave an R.M.I, without having been warned about
the dangers of smoking, and been given a leaflet to reinforce the
warning. All school girls need timely advice and information on
parent craft and child care.