School health: Not to be taken lightly

(Baonghean) - School health care plays an extremely important role in primary health care for the country's future generations. However, currently, most schools in the province do not have full-time health workers, showing that this work has not received proper investment and attention...

NThis school year, Quang Trung 2 Kindergarten (Vinh City) organized a periodic health check-up for 374 children in the whole school. Through this examination, the school discovered that nearly 40% of the children had dental diseases. This rate is also quite high among children of primary and secondary school age. The results of the periodic health check-up at the beginning of the year at Hung Dung 1 Primary School showed that more than 46% of students had dental diseases and 20% of students had eye diseases.

Ha Huy Tap 2 Primary School (Vinh City) organizes periodic health check-ups for students.

According to statistics from Vinh City Medical Center, in the 2013-2014 school year, the number of students suffering from oral diseases was quite high; especially at lower levels (oral diseases in preschool accounted for over 20%, primary school accounted for 27%). School eye diseases tended to increase with the levels of education from preschool to primary school, junior high school. Specifically, the rate of primary school students with myopia was over 10%, primary school was 27%, and secondary school this figure was 30%. According to Mr. Nguyen Van Minh - Head of the Department of Public Health, City Medical Center, the main reason was that the pressure on students to study was increasing, but the facilities at some schools did not ensure quality and standards; study and rest time was unreasonable; many children today were exposed to technological devices early, which affected their eyesight. It is worth mentioning that many parents do not really care about their children's health and consider school diseases as common diseases. During health check-ups for students at school, many children have myopia of 2-3 degrees, but neither the children nor their parents know. Therefore, they do not receive timely care and treatment, so the disease becomes more and more serious, affecting their studies.

Tam Dinh Kindergarten (Tuong Duong) is located in a mountainous area, most of the residents are poor households, ethnic minority households, on the other hand, the total number of students in the school is up to 275, divided into 7 school locations. With a large number of students and the characteristics of the separate schools being far apart, it is very difficult to regularly organize health check-ups, care for students' health and monitor food hygiene and safety. Teacher Ho Thi Thanh - Principal of the school shared: "The school still has many shortages in facilities, teaching and learning equipment, and limitations in the awareness of students and parents, but the most urgent shortage is still the lack of specialized medical staff. Without medical staff, we have to take turns taking on other duties!" This concurrent duty has been going on continuously for a long time without any more feasible solution. Currently, the school cooperates with Tam Dinh Commune Health Station to maintain health check-ups for children at the beginning of the school year, but for a long time after that, due to lack of funds, it cannot be organized. Seasonal disease prevention is also completely dependent on the commune health station, and the school's teachers can only encourage each other to try to maintain the general hygiene of the school, classrooms, teaching materials and take care of children as best as possible.

Thus, it can be seen that the problem of lack of and weak school health workers has become a big gap in physical health care - which is no less important than educating students. We have visited many schools in the province, and the main reason pointed out is the lack of staff. Ms. Vo Thi Tuyet Chinh - Deputy Head of the Department of Education and Training of Tuong Duong district expressed her concern: "We are also very concerned about the situation that the whole district's education sector only has 3 school health workers, but we are helpless because the staff is currently very limited. Two years ago, we did not have any more staff to recruit. Hopefully this year, the situation will improve to partly solve the shortcomings of school health workers."

Student health care plays an extremely important role, contributing to improving health and improving learning efficiency. However, school facilities and the school health system in our province are still facing many difficulties, especially in rural, remote and isolated areas. Most schools have a shared health room with other departments, some remote schools in mountainous areas still do not have a health room. The human resources for student health care are mostly part-time, with only about 45% of medical staff being full-time. In addition, the funding for school health services currently mainly relies on student health insurance, but currently the rate of students participating in health insurance in the whole province is only 88%.

Discussing this issue, Dr. Nguyen Van Cau, in charge of school health work of the Department of Education and Training, said that in order to limit the increase of school diseases in schools, in recent times, the Nghe An Education Department has coordinated with the Health Department to strengthen inspection and supervision activities of school health care. Every year, the Department coordinates with health units to organize periodic health check-ups and free examinations and consultations for students; focusing on implementing student health insurance. To improve the effectiveness of health work in schools, in the coming time, we strive to increase the rate of students participating in health insurance, in the 2014-2015 school year, we will try to reach 95%. On October 3, 2014, the Department of Education and Training issued Official Dispatch No. 1982 on reviewing the school health staff, training and improving professional qualifications to the Department of Education and Training of districts, towns, cities and high schools in the whole province.

It emphasizes that units must cooperate with professional schools to open training classes and professional development in cases where full-time medical staff do not have a professional diploma from intermediate medical school or higher. As for part-time medical staff, they must be trained and have a certificate in school medical profession. For schools that do not have medical staff, they must be recruited in accordance with the regulations of the health sector. Thus, in the short term, we must still accept the existence of medical staff working part-time with other jobs. In the long term, the staffing for the education sector will be given priority for most medical staff, especially medical staff in kindergartens. Hopefully, in the coming time, school medical work will be given attention and improved...

Article and photos:Phuong Chi - Dinh Nguyet