A Comparison of Australian and Overseas Legislation Relating to The Rights of Children to Health Surveillance and Medical Care

The notion of legislation being required to ensure compliance with preventive health surveillance programmes in infancy, may with some validity, be questioned on the grounds that handicap in children occurs less frequently than in previous generations. Physical handicaps like the limb weakness which followed poliomyelitis which was prevalent 30 to 100 years ago are virtually unheard of today but there is evidence that there are, particularly in the lower socio-economic groups in our community, significant numbers of children with hidden, undiagnosed disabilities such as deafness.