popular and it seems that attendance is exclusively confined to women who either suspect or are conscious of an abnormality; 20.06% of those who attended for post-natal care needed some form of treatment.
207. Maternal and Child Health Centres played an active part in the oral poliomyelitis vaccination campaign held in January and March, 1964, and they provided all the specimens required for the virological and serological studies carried out by the Government Virus Laboratory in connexion with the campaign.
SCHOOL, HEALTH SERVICE
208. The Medical and Health Department undertakes in all registered schools, through its School Health Service, responsibility for environ- mental sanitation, the control of communicable disease, immunization against diphtheria, smallpox, cholera and typhoid and bealth education, There is also a medical inspection and curative service provided for a limited number of participants in the existing contributory School Health Scheme. This latter scheme is under review and will be replaced in Septem- ber, 1964, by a School Medical Service operated on a per capita con- tributory basis by private practitioners. To this end, negotiations have been conducted with the Chinese Medical Association, members of which have agreed to participate in a medical inspection and curative service for school-children.
209.
During 1963, 24,859 pupils from 228 schools were participating in the existing contributory School Health Service. Medical inspections. clinic services, dental care and specialist ophthalmic and ear, nose and throat investigations and treatment were provided. Table 27 sets out the work done.
TABLE 27
WORK OF SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE 1962
Medical Inspections 37,265
General Clinic Artendances
32,673
210.
Dental Arrendances 27,873
ENT. Attendancer 1.189
* 1,971 pairs of spectacles and 292 pairs of lens replacements were issued.
Ophthalmic Attendances
3,641*
Apart from major outbreaks of measles and chickenpox there were no epidemics of infectious disease amongst children of school age. A total of 121,458 school children were fully immunized against diphtheria and a further 39,648 were given booster doses; 9,032 children were vaccinated against smallpox and 485,723 were inoculated against cholera.
48
211. Tuberculin-testing was carried out during the year as part of a general investigation to check the sensitivity state of pupils in registered schools throughout the Colony with a view to extending the B.C.G. service, as a routine, to all school children. Tuberculin tests numbering 34,793 were performed and 10,706 children were vaccinated with B.C.G. Positive reactors were investigated, as were known family contacts of tuberculosis; those with suggestive signs and symptoms and those with a 15 mm. or greater reaction were requested to attend for an X-ray examination. In these three groups a total of 644 children were advised to attend for an X-ray; 616 of them showed no radiological evidence of disease and 15 were referred for full investigation at a chest clinic. The remaining 13 did not attend for X-ray examination.
212. Before being permitted to teach in registered schools, school teachers are required to undergo an X-ray examination. During the year, 4.243 chest X-rays were taken and 37 teachers were found to be suffering from active Luberculosis; in such cases permission to teach is refused and priority admission to hospital arranged. After full investigation a further 139 teachers were permitted to teach under regular medical supervision.
213. Registered school premises are inspected routinely by Health Inspectors; all new premises and all proposals for extensions or altera- tions to existing schools are investigated to ensure adequate environ- mental sanitation and hygiene. Such inspections numbered 2,330 during the year.
214. Health education activities included lectures by doctors and Health Visitors to teachers-in-training, visits were also arranged to school clinics for practical demonstrations of the common health problems amongst school children. School and home visits and talks to pupils and parents at school clinics by Health Visitors are routine activitics which are an integral part of the work of the School Health Service.
DENTAL SERVICE
215. The Government Dental Service, under the direction of the Senior Dental Specialist, provides general dental care for the Civil Servicc as well as a School Dental Service, related to the School Health Scheme. In addition, emergency dental care is given to patients in Government hospitals, to prisoners in Her Majesty's Prisons and to the public at certain of the Government out-patient clinics. The work of the General Dental Service during the years 1961-63 is shown in Table 28.
49