Report / Board of Health, City of Edmonton, Alberta.

  • Edmonton (Alta.). Board of Health.
Date:
[1963]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report / Board of Health, City of Edmonton, Alberta. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/34 (page 18)
    SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICES, 1963 At the beginning of the 1963-64 academic year 70,277 students attended 153 city schools, and public health services were provided by 50 district nurses of the Health Department. Periodic examinations by the medical officers covered grades I, V, and X (grade V being omitted in selected schools) and all entrants to the school system. In September, the final examination was moved from grade X to gradeIX. Ad¬ ministratively this worked out well and it ensured a final check-up for those students who leave school after completing grade IX. Audiometric screening of all grade IV students continued. Of those sur¬ veyed, 484 or 6.8% required individual testing and, for about a third of this group, audiograms were made and the parents interviewed, if possible. Opthalmic examinations and spectacles, where necessary, were provided for 139 children of indigent parents, and a further 27 were assisted with spectacle repairs. The first general administration of oral poliomyelitis vaccine took place at the beginning of the year and 53,041 first doses and 52,157 second doses were given in the schools. The balance of the immunization programme was main¬ tained at the normal level. Reinforcing doses of triad (diptheria, tetanus, and poliomyelitis combined) were given in grades I, V and IX, and smallpox vaccination was offered in grades II and VIII. Primary immunization courses against diptheria and tetanus and against poliomyelitis were arranged for the small group starting school without this protection. The incidence of measles rose sharply at the end of the year. The one case of typhoid recorded was not serious and led to the early detection of a carrier in the patient's family. The school population remained free of diptheria (for the fifth successive year) and it is encouraging to note that the last case of paralytic poliomyelitis occurred in 1960. Five new cases of tuberculosis in school children were notified. Continued interest was shown by teachers in the educational programme on cigarette smoking and lung cancer, and the district nurses again distributed the film-strip kit, To Smoke or Not to Smoke along with suitable pamphlets and resource material to all the junior high schools in the city. An instructional display on the same theme was circulated through every senior high school. In early November the director of nursing and the five district charge nurses commenced the study of various aspects of mental illness by means of a series of weekly study groups which constitute part of the training schedule of the Royal Alexandra Hospital's psychiatric unit. EXAMINATIONS BY MEDICAL OFFICERS: Complete periodic examinations ____ 15,525 Examinations on special referral _____ 555 Re-examination _____ 331 Total number of examinations ........ 16,411 Number of pupils with defects ______ 6,321 Parents invited to examinations ___ 9,354 Parents present at examinations ___ 5,235 Pupils referred to physicians _______ 495 Pupils referred to dentists _ 568 EXAMINATIONS BY NURSES: Periodic examinations __________ 37,665 Examinations on special referral ......... 25,465 Re-examinations --- 7,271 Partial examinations _____ 126,335 Total number of examinations ...... 196,736 Number of pupils with defects __~ 33,950 Pupils referred to physicians _____ 3,852 Pupils referred to dentists ______ 1,911