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5
To the Chairman and Members of the
Walthamstow Committee for Education.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present my first Annual Report
on the School Health Services for 1959.
My observations upon the work of the Department for
the full year must of necessity be incomplete since I
only commenced duties in November.
I am very much aware of my good fortune in succeeding
Dr. A.T. W. Powell who developed an unrivalled School
Health Service. This rich legacy will make an excellent
foundation upon which any evolutionary changes in the
pattern and future trends of the Service can be firmly
based.
The Report reveals once again the high level of
general health of the school population. One unsatisfactory
feature stands out and that is the continued high
incidence of caries. Closely associated with this is the
great shortage of school dental officers which precludes
the more frequent routine inspection of all school
children. This shortage in its turn reflects in some
degree, as Mr. Tait mentions in his report, upon the
orthodontic waiting list which for the first time for
several years has reached the fifty mark.
The incidence of infectious diseases was not unduly
great but Sonne Dysentery provided us with its usual
difficulties with regard to its prevention. Plantar
warts could be justly regarded under this heading, and
it is note-worthy that treatments for this condition
accounted for 2,316 out of a total of 2,647.
Mental health, especially in the young, is exercising
our attention increasingly. The School Medical Officer
and Health Visitor/School Nurse have an extremely important
part to play. To this end they must be equipped to detect
early minor deviations from the norm and early maladjustment
in order to prevent serious major breakdownslater on,
which are all too often too intractable to treat. The
school medical officer has his interest in this subject
stimulated whilst undertaking a course on the ascertain
ment of the educationally subnormal child, but this is not
enough. A more intensive form of training, in my opinion,