View report page

Minor ailment clinics
These are staffed by nurses and are held at clinic
premises each morning. Here are treated slight
injuries, skin infections and minor defects of eye
or ear. The number of attendances is falling and
most sessions now take no more than 30 minutes.
School consultation clinics
These are staffed by a medical officer and
regular sessions are held at the various clinic
premises. Parents are free to take their children
for advice on any condition and pupils may be
referred by head teachers, school nurses, etc and
these sessions also provide facilities for the
follow-up of conditions found at periodic and
special inspections. Where active treatment is
required, the pupils are referred to their own
doctor or specialist clinics and most of the work
done by the medical officer is advisory,
educational or supportive.
Ophthalmic clinics
Dr H B Casey MB BCh DOMS, ophthalmologist,
reports on the work of the ophthalmic clinics—
'The borough's ophthalmic clinics have been
running satisfactorily and have been well
attended.
The vision of entrants to school is tested during
their first year when the hereditary defects of
myopia, hypermetropia and astigmatism are
detected. It is necessary to test the near as well
as the distant vision as high hypermetropes will
pass a distance vision test but will fail a near
vision test. Most of these refractive errors can be
corrected either with spectacles or by occlusion
plus orthoptics, thus enabling the child to
function better with his or her education and
general progress. Children in the 11 to 16 year age
group develop axial myopia and often parents
and teachers are unaware of these visual changes.
The early treatment of strabismus cannot be
over emphasized and children with squints or
suspicious squints should be referred to the
ophthalmic clinic at an early age as treatment
should be started from the age of one year.
Binocular vision has to be established early in life
and with the co-operation of medical officers,
health visitors and parents errors can be corrected
and the 'lazy' eye or amblyopia ex anopsia should
be a rarity.
Martindale School for the Physically
Handicapped is visited once a month and the
children have regular eye examinations.
Children are referred to the ophthalmic clinics
mostly with refractive errors, squints, blepharitis
and conjunctivitis. One child presented herself
with bilateral papilledema which was confirmed
as a cranio-pharyngioma. She received operative
treatment and is making satisfactory progress.'
Orthopaedic clinics
These clinics are staffed jointly by the Regional
Hospital Board who provide the orthopaedic
surgeons and the local authority who employ the
physiotherapists. Two clinics are held in the
borough, one at Brentford Health Centre where
Mr J A Cholmeley attends fortnightly and the
other at Hounslow Health Centre where Mr F
Godsalve Ward attends monthly. Mr Cholmeley
is associated with the Royal National Orthopaedic
Hospital and Mr Ward with Ashford and
Hounslow Hospitals. The attendance of Mr Ward
at Hounslow Health Centre began this year, the
clinic previously having been under the direction
of Mr Maudsley from Heatherwood Hospital.
The new arrangement with Mr Ward at
Hounslow is proving a particularly happy one
because of his connection with Hounslow
Hospital which with its X-ray and other
facilities, is separated from the Health Centre by
only a short public footpath. An easy and fruitful
partnership has rapidly been established between
the hospital and the local authority in this field.
Although 980 children are on the orthopaedic
clinic registers, only 291 needed to see a surgeon
during the year. 330 children required treatment
by physiotherapists at council clinics. In addition
to attendances made at the Brentford and
Hounslow clinics a physiotherapist attends the
Busch House School four times weekly to
provide treatment for children suffering from
asthma, bronchitis and other
conditions requiring physiotherapy.
Speech therapy clinics
1966 has been eventful in the development of the
speech therapy service. At the medical advisory
unit at Martindale School for physically
handicapped children two fully equipped speech
45