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95
SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE
In the following pages will be found a record of the work of the school
health service for the past year. The work of the specialist clinics is
fully detailed and affords ample evidence of the integration of local authority
and hospital board services. The same is true of the rheumatism
supervisory centre.
The record of the two schools for handicapped children is one of steady
progress. At Vale Road School for Physically Handicapped Children there has
been an expansion in the facilities available for cases of cerebral palsy and
a special consultant appointed to advise on the work. The needs of the very
smallest of these handicapped children have still to be met but it is hoped
to do this in the new accommodation for which building approval has been given
At the School for Deaf Children the expansion of nursery class facilities
has been of the utmost value. The opening of a unit for partially deaf
children in 1955 will go far to solve the problems of a group of children who
did not really fit in either at the school for the deaf or at the ordinary
school. Higher education for deaf children has always been a problem as
Mary Hare Grammar School has only been able to admit a small proportion of
children considered suitable.
This year has seen the coming to fruition of plans for a Technical School
in Surrey, and several children from the Tottenham School have been entered
for scholarships there.
Routine medical examination of school children has continued. The
enthusiastic attendance of parents is a tribute to their belief in its value.
The commonest complaint of a serious nature is one of maladjustment, often
associated with broken or unhappy homes. But the children on the whole are
healthy, happy and well-clad. The function of routine medical inspection
today is no longer one of merely segregating fit from unfit, but an attempt to
assess individual optimum health of the children attending this periodic
health overhaul. Details of defects found at routine medical inspections are
set out in the tables at the end of this report.
It is hoped that the introduction of B.C.G. vaccination will further help
to preserve the health of our young people when they leave school.
Dental Service
Mr. V. Sainty, L.D. S. Area Dental Officer reports:-
"The staff at the end of 1954 consisted of eight full-time and two parttime
dental officers, and one part-time orthodontist. One of the full-time
the two part-time dental officers and the orthodontist were appointed at