SPECIALIST TO AID IN SCHOOL MEDICAL SERVICE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23219, 3 April 1950, Page 8

SPECIALIST TO AID IN SCHOOL MEDICAL SERVICE

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, April 3. A specialist in children’s ailments is to be appointed by the Government to assist in the medical examination of school children. The Minister o£ Health, Mr. J. ,T. Watts, stated last evening that a specialist would be appointed in Auckland and would work part time in a clinic to which children from all schools in the metropolitan area would be referred for special examination. If this step proved successful further specialists would be appointed in other metropolitan areas. Mr. Watts said he was particularly interested in promoting the prevention side of medicine ns he felt that should be the main function of the Minister of Health and the Health Department. With the tremendous growth in social security and health benefits over the past l(i years and the problems created as a result the preventive side of health had not received the attention it deserved. For example, the sum of only £21.000 was shown in last year's estimates for medical research. Prevention ot Disease

One of the most Important forms of preventive health work, said the Minister, was iii 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 past few years, however, as the result of. incomes that could be earned in private practice ,by medical practitioners only half the desired number of. doctors were available lor this work, though the proportion of s.chool children examined in recent years compared favourably with the number examined before the war. Owing to the shortage of medical personnel district nurses had carried out some of the routine examinations and assumed a great deal of added responsibility, for 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 whigh the Government attached to this work, the Cabinet had, on his recommendation, authorised the appointment of a specialist in childrcn’s ailments to assist in the medical examination of school children,, The Minister said that in Auckland itself there were about 30,000 primary school children and in addition .about 17,000 ■ elsewhere in the central Auckland district and in ' the ThaniesTauranga district to whom the service would be available.