[Report 1960-1961] / School Medical Officer of Health, Anglesey County Council.

  • Anglesey (Wales). County Council. no2003102100.
Date:
1961
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1960-1961] / School Medical Officer of Health, Anglesey County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    To the Chairman and Members of the Education Committee. Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the honour to present the combined forty-seventh and forty-eighth Annual Reports of the School Medical Service in the County. It is regretted that the report for 1960 was not published last year, but this was due to acute administrative and clerical staff dif¬ ficulties, a number of the senior members of the staff being absent simultaneously and over a long period of the year through serious illnesses. I am glad to report however that all the staff recovered and were able to return to duty. Although I am personally responsible for the production of this combined report for the two years 1960 and 1961, its contents are largely the work of Dr. G. Wynne Griffith who left the service on the 31st March, 1962, to take up an appointment with the World Health Organisation in Washington, U.S.A. It is fitting therefore that we should pay tribute to Dr. Wynne Griffith’s valuable services in this report. He came to Anglesey in 1948 at the crucial time in relation to the operation of the National Health Service Act, 1946, involving a rapid expansion of the services, some of which affected the school health services. He is perhaps particularly well known for his work in connection with the fluor¬ idation of the county water supplies and a definite improvement in the dental health of the children is already becoming apparent as shown in the report on “The Conduct of the Fluoridation Studies in the United Kingdom” recently issued. He was also instrumental in introducing multiple puncture testing of school entrants, a service which has proved its worth in the control of tuberculosis amongst school children. His work in connection with the ascertainment of handicapped pupils, especially the educationally sub-normal, is also worthy of note. There is no doubt that his personality and enthusiasm will be missed in Anglesey. The health of the school population in so far as it can be measured by statistical indices continued to be satisfactory in 1960 and 1961, and in the body of this report will be found several indications in support of this general conclusion.