Health Program in Schools

This new program promotes the education on good health awareness, updating the schools with the schedule of vaccinations to be taken, social and psychological counseling of students along with regular check ups, training for doctors and physicians in proper methods of handling or management of school health.

What is the importance of implementing a health program in schools?
This type of program helps students and the young generations understand the nature and value of long-term health care. Also parents and teachers learn the importance of providing good health care system in school because it has been seen that children spend one third of their time in school and they contract most of infectious disease during this time.

Infectious diseases are transmitted from school children to the family and this propagation affects more than half of the population. Therefore, implementing such program will help in preventing the spread of infectious diseases among children in schools that will eventually be transmitted from one person to another.
This program also provides training for doctors and physicians in proper methods of handling or management of school health. Early detection and accurate reporting in the presence of the virus can be stopped from spreading among other students. This will also help the students to maintain and practice good hygiene and be well groomed.

Implementation of this program will surely unravel the complex issues involved in health care.

Elements of Comprehensive Health Examinations Relating To School Health
An assessment on entry into school should include a review of the medical history. This should include physical, emotional, or family problems that might influence school achievement.

Anticipatory guidance for students and parents should be provided and it should include topics as physical fitness; nutrition; injury and violence prevention; cardiovascular risk reduction;; sexual development and sex education; stress management; alcohol and other drug abuse; and tobacco use.

New Strategies to Rejuvenate Health care System
The school should provide additional physical examination and assessment services to enhance the health care system; also for better instances they should have a school nurse and a physician.

Administration can improve their health services by extending the help from pediatrician. And it should be always appreciated to assess the children under the supervision of health personnel skilled in children.

Each child should be examined individually (rather than in groups) to ensure adequate attention to individual problems and concerns, to protect confidentiality and the child's sense of modesty.

Parents should consent to the school health evaluation and be present, particularly in the primary grades. Adequate time should be allocated to ensure that all elements of the assessment are addressed.

Proper recording should be mandatory and the copy of records should be available with parents also so that they can use them anytime and anywhere if there is a legitimate need for them.
On completion of the school health assessment, any positive findings requiring medical sub specialist or surgical sub specialist referral should be performed in conjunction with the child's primary care provider.

The holistic concept of health is not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, but a state of general well-being. To imply this, one must use health promotion as a vehicle to achieve an awareness of health that goes beyond concern for a cure, which must include prevention, information, and how to achieve a healthy life.

Remember! Health promotion is a process, not a quick fix. It is directed at achieving an outcome sometimes over a long term with specific results. But it involves citizen and community participation and contributes to improvement in quality of life.