[Report 1940] / Medical Officer of Health, Ramsgate Borough.

  • Ramsgate (England). Borough Council.
Date:
1940
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1940] / Medical Officer of Health, Ramsgate Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/32 (page 23)
    BOROUGH OF RAMSGATE. ANNUAL REPORT OF THE School Medical Officer For the Year 1940. To the Chairman and Members of the Education Committee. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen, I beg to submit my first annual report upon the School Medical Services for the year 1940. As compared with previous reports, it has been considerably curtailed. The special services are not described in detail, and the volume of work undertaken until a large number of school children were evacuated on 2nd June, 1940, was carried out under sometimes difficult conditions. At the same time, during the first half of tho year the work accomplished by the department was more considerable than that carried out in the corresponding period of previous years. A marked increase is to be seen in the visits paid by School .Nurses to schools in connection with cleanliness and the number of individual children examined is greater. It is with regret that one must refer to the resignation, on grounds of health, of Dr. W. J. Bannister, for 21 years School Medical Officer to this Borough, on 30th June, 1940. Perhaps the most outstanding events of the year from the school medical point of view was the evacuation of school children to Staffordshire when the pace of the war quickened so considerably in the early summer. Notice that this Borough was to be an evacuation, area was first given on Sunday, 26th May, when the evacuation date was given as a week later, 2nd June. This short notice put a considerable burden of work upon the Education Department in which the School Medical Services shared. It was particularly difficult to meet the new demands because the week of grace corresponded with the evacuation from Dunkirk. However, every school in the Borough was visited by myself and all cases in attendance and scheduled for evacuation, believed by the Head Teachers or known to this office to be abnormal, were duly inspected and appropriately labelled. At some schools, by the enthusiastic co-operation of the Head Teachers, all the children were inspected. Since evacuation, close touch has been kept with the school medical services of Staffordshire County Council and I should like to pay tribute to the courtesy of the Deputy School Medical Officer of this Authority and to the interest he has always shown in the medical problems of Ramsgate children. It may be said with entire confidence that the amenities provided for our children in this area are satisfactory and that full advantage is taken of them. It would be wished that the parents of the remaining children who have stayed oehind in Ramsgate would take advantage of the facilities of evacuation still open to them and transfer them from a somewhat hazardous and nerve straining atmosphere at Ramsgate to the relatively high safety of villages in a delightful part of rural England. Subsequent to evacuation no official school medical services have been carried on. The Health Visitors have kept an eye open for more obvious defects, but I am fortunately able to record that no measurable deterioration in the condition of the remaining children has* been brought to my notice. Something more in the way of medical inspection is hoped for in the new year.