Most schools now conduct regular health camps within the school premises where doctors do a basic health checkup of all the students and provide a health report for each student.
Health check-ups in school are important as they help:
- Assess normal development of the child
- Keep track of immunization schedule
- Early detection of disease / abnormalities, which when treated in time, allows the child to lead a normal life
A child’s death due to asthmatic attack in a school in Delhi was an eye-opener for all schools – it depicts our deficiency in recognizing and managing basic health problems of school children. It also emphasizes the need to develop a concrete and comprehensive ‘School Health Check-up’ program.
A medial health check-up of all the students should be done once every few months in the school premises, where doctors like pediatric dentist, pediatric ophthalmologist, pediatrician, nutritionist should assess the students.
Parents are encouraged to attend such check-ups along with the child’s previous medical files.
Advantages of ‘School Health Check-up’ program:
- Makes complete medical records available to a child/ parent/ doctor/ school administration anytime, anywhere, at the click of a mouse
- Becomes a central repository for medical data of all students of the school which can be life saving during medical emergencies
- Can be integrated with the annual medical check-up of students so as to capture all information immediately
A health camp was recently conducted in my son’s school and the children were checked for the following:
Watch your child grow
Here, each child is checked for healthy growth; how is the height and weight for the age of the child?
Based on the measurements, remarks are given such as:
- The child’s weight falls below 10 percentile for his age. you need to work on it.
- The child’s height is age appropriate and falls between 3-97 percentile. Keep up the good work.
- Child’s BMI is 13.55, which is appropriate for the age. Keep up the good work.
In this area, my second son got one different remark:
- The child’s weight and height is above average and falls above 97 percentile. Please stay in touch with your pediatrician.
What we found on checkup
Overall hygiene: Good.
Good hygiene = good Health.
Nails Hygiene: Average
Cut and trim your child’s nails.
Vaccination: Up to Date.
Keep up the good work.
Nutritional deficiencies
Calcium and Vitamin D deficiency: Absent
Continue giving nutritious diet.
Anemia (low Hemoglobin): Present
Continue giving nutritious diet. Iron rich foods advised.
Vitamin B Deficiency: Absent
Continue giving nutritious diet.
Vision (Without Spectacles)
Right Eye: 6/9
Normal vision.
Left Eye: 6/9
Normal vision.
For my second child, both the eyes were 6/6 with Normal vision.
Ears
Right Ear: Clean
Keep up the good work.
Left Ear: Clean
Keep up the good work.
Teeth
U13 Caries, L20 Caries
Caries – Restoration treatment advised.
For my second child, no dental problems were found.
Gums: Healthy
Healthy gums=Healthy Teeth
Dental occlusion (Bite): Normal
Nothing needs to be done.
Breath: Normal
Keep up the good work.
Psychological Evaluation
- Learning disability: Negative
- ADHD Screening: Need further, detailed evaluation.
- Autism Screening: Negative
- Emotional/Behavioural Screening: Negative
- Media Addiction: No
While I am not sure if the doctor/clinic has to pay some money to the school in order to conduct such camps, these camps seem to be a win win situation for both the school as well as the clinic conducting such heath camps.
On one hand the students get the benefit of free health checkup, for the clinic it is free publicity as hundreds of parents come to know about their services.
A healthy balanced young mindset are the foundation for a future healthy India. These health camps, conducted by a group of paediatric doctors work on the roots of our society – our children. They assess the physical, mental, emotional, and psychological health of children.
Parents too have welcomed the change. While parents try to be very careful with children’s health, a regular check-up at school is definitely a plus, especially for working parents.
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