[Report 1949] / School Health Service, Leicestershire County.

  • Leicestershire (England). County Council. School Health Service.
Date:
1949
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1949] / School Health Service, Leicestershire County. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    iollow-up and Special Inspections. The arrangements outlined in previous years have been continued. Minor Ailments. During the year, 1.249 children made 4,910 attendances at the Minor Ailments Clinic. Thev included 10 cases of scabies. From the term minor ailments it might be inferred that the conditions treated were of relatively little importance—this is by no means the case. Many parents have neither the skill nor the facilities to apply treatment themselves, and the already overburdened general practitioner cannot be expected to carry out frequent treatment, A typical instance is a child with a few impetigenous sores—these are contagious and liable to spread to other children especially if not adequately covered. The mother states that she has been applying treatment for a fortnight without success, and one has no reason to doubt her word. After a few daily attendances at the clinic the condition is cleared up. Thus much school absenteeism is avoided and the risk to other children abated. Another aspect of this work is its educational value. One of the frequent causes of lost time among works employees is the neglect of minor injuries, cuts and the like, which consequently become infected. The inculcation in the child of the habit of paying attention to these minor ailments should help to overcome this neglect in later years. Dental Inspection and Treatment. The number of children inspected during the year was 4,190, and of these 1,559 weer found to require treatment. 1,948 children (including some inspected at the end of the previous year) were treated, making 2,189 attendances. The percentage of consents was 72.2, those attending a private dentist was 19.8 leaving 8.5 who either refused treatment or failed to indicate their wishes in the matter. Supply of Milk and Dinners. A count of the number of children taking milk and dinners on one day in October gave the following figures. Those for 1948 are given for comparison. 1948 1949 No. of Children on the registers 8,135 8,293 No. of children taking milk 6,440 6,340 No. of children taking dinners 3,037 3,051 155 of the children taking dinner have it free. Samples of the milk supplied to the schools were regularly examined and found to be satisfactory. Employment of Children. 110 children were examined prior to taking up part-time employment. Each year during the pantomime season, a number of girls from various- parts of the country come into the town to take part in theatrical entertainments. It is seldom that these children are found not to have some degree of infestation. The limited facilities available for these children in lodgings, the fact that a good deal of time outside school hours is taken up with travelling to the theatre, in stage apeparances, and in travelling from town to town, makes it more difficult to attend to personal cleanliness. There seems to be little advantage to be gained by these children being allowed to undertake such part-time work. Even if training for a career as a danseuse has to be commenced early this need hardly include appearances an the professional stage before the end of the normal school life. If the reason is because of the entertainment value of these juveniles, then the public taste should be educated to demand that children should not be required to undertake the double strain of work of this nature and work at school at an age when developmental changes are also liable to cause much stress. There is no comparison between a girl employed, say, on errands who- is living in her own home and can do her part-time job to a certain extent at her own pace, and that of a juvenile dancer travelling from town to town and inevitably imbued with the tradition of the theatre The show must go on even if she is not feeling up to it. It seems to be worth considering whether in these more enlightened days this type of part-time employment should not be stopped.