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58
20. CONTINUATION SCHOOLS.
I here are no Continuation Schools in East Ham.
21. EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN AND YOUNG PERSONS.
All children in their final medical examination prior to leaving
school have a note placed on their medical card if there is any
special point in their medical history likely to affect the choice of
employment. In cases of definite disability steps are also taken
to interview the parent and advise as to the choice of suitable
employment.
During school medical inspection no children were discovered
whose health was considered to be adversely affected through
employment outside school hours. 22 boys have been specially
examined, in accordance with the Bye-Laws, and all of these were
found to be fit for employment.
The following suggestions, which were put forward in my
report for the year 1922, have been discussed at a meeting of the
Local Insurance Committee, when a resolution was passed to the
effect that no useful purpose was likely to be served by the adoption
of these suggestions:—
"It would appear desirable that, when cases no longer come
within the province of the Juvenile Employment Bureau, the
medical records should be forwarded to the Local Insurance Committee
and thence to the Practitioner on whose panel list the
persons concerned are placed. In addition, in order to increase
the scope of preventive medicine, it would be a valuable innovation
were all insured persons to be subjected to a thorough medical
examination by the Panel Practitioner within a month from the
date of being included on the panel. In this way, and with the
medical records available, treatment could be commenced in the
earliest stages of disease, and it would not be necessary to await
the occurrence of more or less severe symptoms, which in many
cases would denote advanced physical defect, before medical treatment
was commenced."
I am still of the opinion that a scheme of this type, which
aims at securing the co-operation of the General Practitioner in
the interest of preventive medicine, would result in the promotion
of public health.