[Report 1939-1945] / Medical Officer of Health, Fife County Council.

  • Fife (Scotland). County Council.
Date:
1945
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1939-1945] / Medical Officer of Health, Fife County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    68/212 (page 58)
    the total number of treatments given at the clinics, as a result of treating, wherever possible, an increasing number of cases in groups. While this arrangement has given reasonably good results in the less defective conditions, the depleted staff could not give sufficiently frequent or prolonged treatment necessary to more marked cases. This was obvious in the case of certain clinics (Lochgelly, Methil, Burntisland) where two meetings per week had to be reduced to one. Less time was therefore available for individual cases and only by grouping of similar types of cases for remedial exercises was it possible to give treatment to a sufficient number of children. The Public Health Committee are fully aware of the position and have indicated their willingness to employ as large an orthopaedic staff as is required. It is their desire that each child should receive adequate attention and that additional orthopaedic clinics should be opened to meet needs in Dunfermline and Cupar Areas. It is to be hoped that demobilisation will liberate a sufficiency of trained personnel. Speech Therapy. There are four speech therapists who examine and treat school children with defective speech and who attend schools in the follow- ing areas :—(1) Kirkcaldy Burgh and Burntisland District, (2) Buckhaven, Leven and Wemyss, (3) Cowdenbeath, Kelty, Lochgelly, Glencraig and Crossgates, (4) St Andrews, Cupar, Newport, New- burgh, Anstruther, Falkland, Ladybank. More recently, when a car was made available, schools in Markinch and Auchterderran were visited. In the case of the Burgh of Dunfermline, treatment is undertaken by the staff of the Dunfermline Carnegie Trust whose work forms a separate section in this Report. The war in its early stage had a varying effect on the work of the speech therapists. In Kirkcaldy the treatment of the cases continued reasonably well. In Cowdenbeath-Lochgelly area, the closing of some schools in November, 1939, and continuation of others on a half-day basis interfered with attendances. There were some evacuees in this area but they departed before results could be registered. In Buckhaven-Wemyss area where the schools in the Winter Term were on half-day shifts, work was not greatly affected. In the St Andrews area there was a marked influx of evacuees during September-December term, but by the following June the total number receiving treatment was 57 and in August 88. Curtail- ment of ’bus services interfered with attendances in this area. It was decided to concentrate, in so far as possible, treatment in clinics rather than to continue visitation of schools, but this could be done only to a limited extent. In Cowdenbeath, the centre which had been set up in Foulford School, was transferred to the School Clinic (attached to St Columba’s High School). In St Andrews, the centre was transferred to Madras College, the accom-