SCHOOL MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26078, 3 April 1950, Page 6

SCHOOL MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS

SPECIALIST TO HELP AT AUCKLAND SCHEME TO BE EXTENDED IF SUCCESSFUL (New Zealand. Press Association) a . WELLINGTON, April 2. A specialist in children's ailments is to be appointed by the Government to assist in the medical examination of school children, said the Minister of Health (Mr J. T. Watts) this evening. The specialist would be appointed in Auckland and would work part time in a clinic to which children from all the metropolitan area would be referred for special examination, Mr Watts said. If this step proved successful. further specialists would be appointed in other metropolitan areas. Mr Watts said he was particularly interested in promoting the preventive side of medicine, as he felt that should be the main function of the Minister of Health and the Health Department. With the tremendous growth in social security health benefits over the last 10 years and the problems created as a result, the preventive side of health had not received the attention it deserved. For example, a sum of only £21,000 was shown in last year’s Estimates for medical research, Mr Watts said. One of the most important forms of preventive health work was in the field of school medical examinations, which had been commenced many years ago and which, over the years, had proved to be most successful. During the last few years, however, as a result of incomes that could be earned in private practice by medical practitioners, only half of the desired number of doctors were available for that work. Although the proportion of school children examined in recent years compared favourably with the number examined before the war, because of the shortage of medical personnel. district nurses had carried out some of the routine examinations and had assumed a great cfeal added responsibility fur which they deserved much credit.

In the hope of encouraging more medical personnel to join the school medical service, and as an illustration of the importance which the Government attached to that work. Cabinet had. on his recommendation, authorised the appointment of a specialist in children's ailments to assist in the medical examination of school children.

In Auckland itself there were about ?0.000 primary school children, Mr Watts said, and in addition there were about 17.000 elsewhere in the central Auckland district and in the Thamesdistrict to whom the service would be available.