[Report 1964] / Principal School Medical Officer of Health, Warwickshire County Council.

  • Warwickshire (England). County Council.
Date:
1964
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1964] / Principal School Medical Officer of Health, Warwickshire County Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/34 (page 1)
    To the Chairman Mr. Chairman I have the honour to present the report on the health of the schoolchild in Warwickshire during 1964. As Solihull attained County Borough status on the 1st April, 1964, all figures shown in this report exclude Solihull for the whole of 1964. In earlier comparative years, except where otherwise stated, the Solihull figures have been abstracted in order that a true comparison can be made. At the end of the year the school population within the new boundary area had slightly exceeded 90,000. Routine and special school medical examinations numbered over 30,000 during the year, and the general standard of health found at these examinations remained high. Those defects which were found followed the usual pattern and can be found in more detail in table four. Many thousands of children continued to receive re-inforcing prophylactic immunisation and vaccination against the more serious infectious diseases. Poliomyelitis and diphtheria continued to be absent from the County, but the number of new tuberculosis cases in children of school-age increased slightly. This subject and other aspects of child health—the handicapped child, accidents in schoolchildren, and dental decay in children—are reviewed in the following paragraphs. and Members of the Education Committee. , Ladies and Gentlemen, ^hool' 26octi%s Accidents. During the past three years, seventy-four children under the age of fifteen have lost their lives through accidents. Twenty-five of these children (34%) were between five and fourteen years of age. These figures are a small proportion of the accidents which our child population suffers. No comprehensive or co-ordinated data exists on the total number of accidents. In order to get some idea of the size of this problem, a survey was made during the year of the ambulance emergency calls to children between five and fifteen years of age who were Warwickshire residents or attending Warwickshire schools. Although these figures do not account for all accidents they do provide a picture of the common types of mishaps and show where greater care is needed. Emergency Ambulance Calls to Children aged 5-15 Years during 1964. (Warwickshire Residents or attending Warwickshire Schools). Age-group 5-9 10-15 Total Motor-vehicle and cycle accidents... 102 192 294 Accidents at school ... 33 160 193 Accidents in the home 59 45 104 All other accidents ... 73 145 218 267 542 809 Motor Vehicle and Cycle Accidents. The 294 accidents under this heading amounted to well over one third of the emergency calls to children between five and fifteen years of age. A more detailed review of these cases was as follows :— Knocked down by vehicle ... Cyclist in collision with vehicle Fell from cycle Passenger in vehicle accident Other Age-group 5-9 10-15 Total 61 36 97 6 54 60 10 33 43 20 52 72 5 s. 17 22 102 192 ... 294