[Report 1943] / School Medical Officer of Health, Exeter.

  • Exeter (England). City Council.
Date:
1943
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1943] / School Medical Officer of Health, Exeter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    41/44 (page 41)
    i; Ministry of Health, the Local Authority acting as agent. The I whole-time nurseries provide care, education, and all meals and n milk for 1/- a day. Part-time nurseries provide care, education, ;i dinner, with morning and afternoon milk for 6d. a day. The i catering is carried out by arrangement with the Education ) Committee. It has also been agreed that the children may make g use of the Education Committee's dental and minor ailment iJ clinics. A Matron, who is a State registered nurse, is in charge of £ each whole-time nursery, and there is a qualified teacher for the 1 older children. A certificated nursery nurse is in charge of the ? part-time nursery. These nurseries have continued to give valuable help to A working mothers. They are also affording experience upon >, which future planning may be built. : MINISTRY OF HEALTH CIRCULAR 10/44, Paragraph 3. As the Health Visitors are also School Nurses, the control of tj dirty heads is simplified. As a general rule, parents carry out H necessary cleansing themselves with such advice as the nurse i thinks necessary, but in recalcitrant and difficult cases cleansing is r- carried out at the Public Health Committee’s cleansing station. Before the war, the number of school children found to X have dirty heads averaged about 10 per cent, and the number ( of pre-school children found to be unsatisfactory was very much y less. The figure for elementary school children for 1943 was J 16.6 per cent., being an improvement on the previous two years. ^ An accurate figure for pre-school children cannot be given, but j there is no doubt that they do receive more attention from '] parents than their older brothers and sisters. Dirty heads at i the nurseries are not very common, and in any case the cleanliness J of entrants is open to control. Health visitors and hospital 1 nurses both report that lethane oil frequently fails to accomplish 3 all that has been claimed for it. One wonders if there are not r variations between different samples of lethane as found com- I mercially. Most nurses prefer the old-fashioned methods of ) cleansing heads, and rely very largely on the mechanical removal > of nits or vermin by special fine steel combs. These combs can f be obtained from the Department by parents on sale or loan. i In the matter of scabies, 259 families, comprising 823 cases, were dealt with. Nine adult males made use of the Cleansing Station. It is observed that the Scabies Order, 1941, applies to other verminous conditions. Although it has not been necessary to resort to legal action, the power has proved a useful one, par- ticularly in securing examination of adult members of families.