Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

School health clinic opened

Thiruvananthapuram: Health Minister, P. K. Sreemathy on Saturday opened the first school health clinic in the State, which is an initiative under the School Health Programme of the National Rural Health Mission.

The clinic was opened at Cotton Hill Girls HSS. The Minister said school health clinics were a major initiative of the Health Department to promote preventive health care.

The clinic, which has been opened as a joint initiative of the school management and the PTA, will have a doctor, a nurse and a psychologist for counselling throughout the school hours. The staff, medicines including the requirements for minor sutures, have been provided by the NRHM.

Cotton Hill School, which has over 5,300 students from lower primary to higher secondary classes, attends to at least 20-30 cases of minor medical emergencies on a daily basis. According to the school staff, every time a student fell unconscious due to hypoglycaemia or suffered minor injuries, it created panic among the students.

The school has become the first one in the district to sport a full-time clinic, which the health officials hope would be the first step towards promoting health awareness and adolescent health programmes among children.

School health as well as reproductive and adolescent health is a major component under NRHM.

Health officials hope that the new facility would help them convey public health messages like environmental sanitation, source reduction for mosquito control and personal hygiene among children.

At a later stage, it is envisaged that screening children for malnutrition, anaemia and life style diseases could be taken up as part of the proposed National School Health Programme.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

School health clinic opened
SBT services likely to be hit
Honorary Major
Bamboo fete
KPCC for stir
Pastor attacked at Koliyakkode
Agitation at plantation ends
Burglars target ATM counter
Flight delayed as member of cabin crew taken ill
KSEB office ransacked
Rallies, folk-art shows drive home the message against HIV scourge
Award for music director
Thiruvananthapuram today

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu