Schools told to focus on health of students too

The aim is to build Health Promoting and Nutritional Friendly Schools as per the World Health Organisation (WHO) standards. Currently, only one school in Dubai fulfils the nutritional aspects according to the WHO standards.

“Schools, at present, are focusing only on education and are not aware of the importance of health,” explained Dr Hamid Hussain, Specialist Senior Registrar, Primary Health Care at the DHA. He was addressing 170 school nurses and doctors to brief them about the newly updated School Health Manual for private schools in Dubai.

“We want to change the mentality of school managements and steer it towards health,” he said, adding the authority also met with school heads to raise awareness on the issue.

He said schools were ideal community-based settings to invest in health and reduce the expected future burden of disease. “Nearly half of Dubai’s population is in schools, and investing in these settings is the best way to reach the community,” he said. Dr Hussain also said that 40 per cent of the children in Dubai were obese or overweight. “The figures could double or triple in the next 20 years if we don’t interfere right now. Hence, investment is important.”

The guidelines have been benchmarked according to New Zealand, the USA and European standards. “During four years of visits to schools while setting the new guidelines, schools were found to be short staffed and the existing staff was overburdened,” said Dr Hussain. “So the ratio of school nurses and doctors to students was revised.” Based on the findings, schools have been asked to build capacity and hire more staff.

“Implementation and operation will be in school hands while the government will be the regulator,” he said. Schools will also be required to work in partnership with the community, especially parents.

Dr Ramadan Ibrahim, Director of Health Regulation at the DHA, urged school heads to read the manual. “We are here to support the schools in terms of ensuring optimum quality of preventive, primary, curative and rehabilitative services. We would also like to promote and ensure safe and effective practices in health services through positive partnerships and intelligent use of information and standardised regulatory mechanisms to protect our students in the schools.”

Also, school health inspections will start from this academic year for the first time.

asmaalizain@khaleejtimes.com