Extending healthcare to schools
24 July 2003
The government has launched a National School Health Policy programme to attend to the health needs of schoolchildren as well as extend health care services to schools.
Launching the programme in Mogwase, North West, on Tuesday, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said intervention at an early age would benefit children as they were receptive to ideas learnt at school.
"If we implement a workable school health programme across the country, we will reap a bright future for the coming generations," said Tshabalala-Msimang.
She said primary healthcare nurses, who work in local healthcare centres, would be in the forefront of implementing the programme because of their daily contact with communities. In areas where school health nurses existed, they would continue with the work under the auspices of the local primary health care clinic.
"Our aim is to integrate the school health services within the primary healthcare programme," she
said.
Health officials would visit provinces, especially those without school health programmes, to conduct training courses for the nurses who would run the schools health campaign.
Tshabalala-Msimang said the training would include providing health education to children, and imparting life skills to learners, teachers, parents and the entire school community.
The nurses would also be equipped to screen children, especially at Grade R and Grade 1, for specific health problems, and at puberty stage as they underwent physiological changes.
The detection of disabilities at an early age, and identifying children who have not been immunised, will also form part of the health policy.
The minister said diseases commonly affecting children, including visual and hearing disorders, were barriers to learning.
"Skin problems are very common, especially in rural areas and informal settlements, where there is a lack of clean water supply and sanitation," she
said.
Reproductive health problems, sexually transmitted infections, HIV-Aids, violence prevention and support for survivors of abuse, and dental problems will also receive attention in the programme.
The minister said running the programme would cost at least R3.47 per secondary pupil per annum, adding, however, that children at Grades R and Grade 1 required a little more investment. She said the health department envisaged spending between R26 to R33 per child per annum.
"The assumption is that as learners progress to senior grades, it will become cheaper to provide them with school health services as they will have received intensive care at entry level," said Tshabalala-Msimang.
The programme will be implemented in phases, to cover 30 percent of districts in every province by the end of 2004 at an estimated cost of R10-million. "We hope to extend these services to 60 percent of the districts by 2005, and to cover the whole country by the end of 2007,"
Tshabalala-Msimang said.
Source: BuaNews
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