indian council of medical research - Pondicherry University DSpace ...

=-. Mental health
=, Dental health
Eye health
3 Health education
-1 Education of handicapped children
=, Proper maintenance and use of school health records
The primary health centers are given the responsibility of administering school health
service within their jurisdiction. On an average, each doctor has to approximately look
after 1,500 ch~ldren In reality, only health appraisal of school children 1s done and a
few remedial measures are given which are limited to distributing vitamin A B D
capsules, B complex tablets, iron and folate tablets, antihelm~nth~cs and scab~cldal
lotton to a few students depending on the stock position of drugs About 300-400
chlldren are examined in a single day and the doctor completes his task in 3 or 4 days.
The average time spent on each child is approximately 1-2 minutes. Other aspects of
SHS are not given time and attention. None of the national health programs are
~mplemented through the SHS. Owing to several reasons, none of the SHS existing in
India today are functioning satisfactorily. One important reason for th~s being that, the
PHC medical off~cer mainly having to shoulder the responsibility of giving health care to
several school children in addition to his many other responsibil~ties. Gupta (1983) has
Suggested that a centrally sponsored school health program (SHP) be launched In
which many components of the SHP including health and nutrition education could be
taken core of by the school teachers, with proper guidance and support from the
education and health authorities. He also felt that the main focus should be on health
and nutrition education aimed not only at providing knowledge but also at inculcating