[Report 1925] / School Medical Officer of Health, Swinton & Pendlebury.

  • Swinton and Pendlebury (England). Council.
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1925] / School Medical Officer of Health, Swinton & Pendlebury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/50 (page 7)
    a specialist, and require prolonged and continued effort to remedy— the remedy depending upon the cause. It is well known that mouth breathing and its under]ying causes is a fruitful source of running ears, deafness, bronchitis, and many other more serious maladies which can thus be prevented if the original cause is removed. The School Medical Officer attends the Minor Ailment clinic daily, to advise parents and supervise the dressings, etc. Co-Ordination. The Health Services of the Council are all linked up together, and efforts arc made to maintain complete and continuous health records from birth (and in some cases previously) until the child leaves school. The Health Visitors supply the School Nurses with visiting and clinic records of all children under their care, as soon as they enter school. Such records give information to the S.M.O. when the child is first examined in school, and special notes are always made of defective children previously known to the Health Visitors. In this way the care of the Health Visitors for debilitated children under school age is gradually transferred to the School Nurses. No Nursery Schools exist in the district, but there are 538 children under the age of 5 on the school registers, who attend more or less regularly the Nursery classes, are examined soon after entry to school, and kept under home and school observation bv ihe Nursing Staff. Monthly sanitary inspections of all schools are made by the Sanitary Inspectors and reports submitted to the Committee. In other ways the staff of the Health Department works in close co-operation with the School Medical Staff, as for example in the cleansing of houses and clothing of children affected with infectious disease, vermin, etc. SCHOOL HYGIENE. It cannot be claimed that the essentials for health are provided in all the schools in the district. There are buildings which are defective in structure and where the fighting is deficient. There are playgrounds which in wet weather are pools of mud and water, directly injurious to the children, and rendering impossible the maintenance of a high standard of cleanliness in child or school. There are desks which are obsolete, and sanitary conveniences which are primitive. There are instances of insufficiency of lava¬ tory bowls and cloak room accommodation, and in general a mul¬ titude of defects wh’ch were so common a geneiation age, but which are gradually giving way to better things. It is encouraging to be able to report that progress though slow, is yet being made ; that old desks are being substituted by new ; playgrounds paved