HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14936, 14 June 1919, Page 7

HEALTH OF SCHOOL CHILDREN.

REPORT OF DR. GUNN,' MEDICAL INSPECTOR. . DISADVANTAGES OF THE EAST COAST, j .. ■ ■ j A report of considerable . interest affecting the health of the various schools throughout this district, was submitted to the Education Board at yesterday's meeting as the outcomp of the visit of Dr. Elizabeth Gunn, medical inspector of schools. In submitting the report, Mr W. W. Bird, chief inspector, called the Board's attention to the doctor's remni'ks m connection with the lunch question. He suggested that the Board might endeavour to get the local school committees to improve the present methods. The suggestion of establishing a hostel m the larger country centres; m order to afford country children, m the. most remotes places a better /education and to obviate the necessity of having : small schools under more or less inexperienced teachers, was one which he thought the Board might take into its earliest consideration. The- question of ventilation was a matter on which teaches should receive definite instructions from the Board. . Dr. Gunn's report Mvas as follows— I wish to submit as .follows my report for the month of May : , Tokomaru Bay— 35 infants examined; 19 mothers present (the delay of the boat ior a day altered my itinerary or the teacher assures me more would have been^present) ; 19 show evidence of malnutrition, due, l feel sure, !to excess of meat And Jack of milk, j eggs, fish .and vegetables, 15 have en- ■ larged tonsils, requiring operation, and :23 "require dental trea|Rient: ' The number of physical deformities I cannot ac- ! count for; 18 with parked deformities, ! and 6 with mild,- tnaking m all 24. Can this bo due to the long ride night and morning, or is it due to malnutrij tion? — it is certainly r jf much too big a j. number. The rest of| the school, 79 m 'all were examined, libse, throat, teeth, ! and- eyesight. 39 xequird atteniiori— 2 de^ j fective sight, 2 defective .hearing, 37 i dental treatment and #£ enlarged tonsils I adenoids. ■> . ;< ■ I Waipivo Bay : There; were 64 present. I examined nose, tlir oat", teeth, arid eyesight and found 33 dental cases. Eleven Maori children had j perfect teeth — 15 ; enlarged tonsils ; • 2 'defective eyesight. i There is no dentist hero and only one doctor jo no operations are done. To have tonsils and adenoids removed necessitates atrip to Gisborhe. Tologa .Bay: 38 infants examined. Fourteen show marked' malnutrition; 24 require llental, treatment • 5 enlarged tonsils and adenoids ; '13 enlarged glands. , I must remark on the /difference m physique of the Maori - children compared with the Pakeha. I saw only one Maori child with malnutrition! arid she also had T. 8 .. spine — all the others were splendid' specimens, , wttereas the Pakeha were puny and thin. '. The. • rest of the school, 107 m numbjKf, examined nose, .throat and eyesight; 61 decayed teeth; 23 enlarged tonsils; .4 defective eyesight. A r Makaraka : 97 present— d.c. — 42 require treatment; enlarged tonsils 18; defective- eyesight 2. The whole school examined nose, throat, teeth and eyesight. A short address given to teachers and scholars.. '■ . Following a plan .which I have been working on m Wangahtii, I am examining all entrants m children, of five arid six years old m each school. Ah invitation is sent to each parent telling the time of tho child's examination, and. the response of parents is most satisfactory. I am convinced that to get irninediato treatment carried out .' from one's recommendations the pa'rept must be present at the examination and /actually &cc the deformity. I wish that a medical inspector had more power — many of these infants though five years are only, three or four years m physique and should not be shut m crowded classrooms but to order from any school 40 or 50 infants would?' with! the present way of staffing schools, etc., ■;.- render the medical inspector's visit anything but welcome. Also- ;be possible to. compel parent3r^o^have, marked defects attended to. A child with marked nasal obstruction, etc, at five or six ia nothing but a nuisance m a school and is not physically fit to receive advantage from his school. It should be possible to '.refuse admittance to schools all children suffering from medical defects. Thd difficulties of having children attended to on the East Coast are great, and it is very discouraging to visit these schools and find so many defects and know that there is little or no chance of their being remedied. There are no dentists and very few doctors ; also iheie is g/eat difficulty m procuring correct foofl for children— the people all seem to be so' busy making money that there is no' time to make a 'garden, etc. There is a great lack and scarcity . of vegetables, fruit, fish and eggs. But the malnutrition is not only among the infants m the country; scnools, it is very marked m the town, and I have not yet met one case where malnutrition is due to want of food. Too many children take their lunches to school. This is due m a great many cases to the short dinner hour— one hour not being enough for most children to get home and have dinner and back to school, arid so a lunch at school, which means money tc buy a pork pie or some broken biscuits. I have recommended the headmasters to have what I call an organised Innch, that is lunch time 1 under a teachers' supervision from 12 to 12.20, and children must be made too sit down and eat their lunches m a decent- manner,. I feel sure that if some of the small shops near these schools were approached a suitable lunch would be provided for 3d or 4d> and the children never seem to spend less than this on their lunch. In the town schools of Gisborne I am informed that it is not colci enough to have cocoa, etc. It seems a great pity that country children have no means of learning hygiene and cooking, one of the most essential things from what one. can judge. I wonder that the department or board does not establish a hostel near one of the larger schools and so collect all the children who now get taught at aided schools, or who have to be sent away to school. With good management, surely the bigger girls could be taught, cooking — malnutrition is due m a great many cases to bad cooking and th© spoiling of good food. On visiting country schools, it being so difficult to get there, I have doric the following :— Examined the whole school, nose, throat, and teeth — any bad eyesight cases, or any special cases, and then have given an address to the standard children arid teachers. This sepms to be better than examining 20 or 30 children . and not locking at the rastf The value of fresh air has yet. to be taught to many teachers.. Shut th© windows and doors arid try to Keep up the thermometer to 60 m ?t large classroom with one fireplace seems to be the order of the day, and this is done on gloriously fine sunshiny days. Open air classrooms witL windows or solid sides towards the prevailing -winds would/ be ideal m this district. Mr Wildish: said he took excoption to portions of the report. For instance he considered it impossible for the Board to make arrangements with a shop to provide lunch for 3d, while again a lot of people were not m a position to buy lunches for their chaldron, oven at that priceAftej? some discussion it was decided to forward to the Charitable Aid Board a copy of an unpublished portion of the report for their confidential information^ Mr Bull remarking that if certain child, ren were being neglected those responsible should be made aware of it. Mr Wildish said he thought it deiirable the report should be discussed. Referring to the visit of a previous doctor he said some of the members of this committee Objected to. her methods' and thought she should use more discretion.