Dear Editor,
The unprecedented “Comprehensive Child and Youth Health Programme (CYHP),” that was recently birthed in Guyana, is a most wonderful initiative. The programme intends to facilitate oral, health, hearing and vision screening, for children and adolescents, with the aim to improve the health of school children ages five to 17. It is backed by the Mount Sinai Health Systems and Hess Corporation, who have so far donated a number of medical equipment and materials, as part of incipient consultancy facilitation.
Editor, first of all, ‘health is wealth,’ and ‘prevention is better than cure.’ I do know that worldwide, this is nothing new, as for over a century, school health services have provided children with an important safety net, identifying those with disorders that may not be readily apparent to parents or teachers, or to the children themselves. These services became more sophisticated over time, with formal screening of targeted age groups of school children for specific disorders replacing the general medical checks of earlier years. Screening tests now are standard procedures in many school health services and tests cover a wide range of disorders.
May I inform the public that growth and development, hearing and vision, speech and language, and dental problems are some of the many health issues handled by many school health screening systems. School screening systems have a valued place within both the health care and education sectors. Systems that are constantly reflected upon and critically evaluated will continue to serve our children well, far into the future. So, this beginning is very vital to our country’s children.
Another point I want to emphasize is that schools are important settings for comprehensive health promotion. Research consistently demonstrates that health and education are inextricably linked and the most effective way to address the development of life-long healthy attitudes and behaviours, such as maintaining a healthy weight, is through a comprehensive school health approach. The comprehensive school health approach is an internationally recognized framework for supporting improvements in students’ educational outcomes while addressing health issues in the school context in a planned, integrated and holistic way. It encompasses the whole school environment with actions addressing four distinct but inter-related pillars: social and physical environment; teaching and learning; healthy school policy; and partnerships and services.
In closing, I hope all will pay heed to and support the Ministry of Health as it looks to launch the programme in a couple of weeks starting with nursery level pupils. The news from Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony, is that “… a comprehensive programme will be rolled out at the nursery level and later expanded to primary and secondary levels.” He informed all that “We have established a set of measures to be implemented at the nursery level which will include visual, hearing, dental and physical check-ups to address any conditions and prevent long-term issues,” adding that the Ministry aims to screen at least 27,000 nursery-level children.
Sincerely,
HB Singh
