Utilisation of outpatient services at Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital, Cape Town

The demand for outpatient services continues to grow at Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital (RCCH). To determine current utilisation patterns, we conducted a 2-week survey in the outpatient department (OPD). In addition, we reviewed the RCCH Annual Reports for the period 1961 - 1988. Annual outpatient attendances have increased from around 42000 in 1957 to their highest level ever; nearly 350000 in 1988. This steady rise in outpatient attendance was stemmed during the 1970s by the expansion of health services in the greater Cape Town area, in particular the introduction ofday hospitals. In general, blacks are utilising the OPD as a primary community hospital for the treatment of infectious and environmentally induced diseases. In contrast, the white outpatient profile is more characteristic of a tertiary referral centre, with a higher proportion of specialist clinic attendances. The utilisation patterns for coloured children are intermediate. Analysis of the residential address of patients and their presenting diagnoses indicates an urgent demand for primary health care services in the most recently settled and poorest suburbs of Cape Town, many of which are remote from the hospital

Antonyms in children's and child-directed speech

This article presents two studies based on a corpus of American English speech by and to five children from 2 to 5 years old. The first study investigates frequency of antonym co-occurrence in speakers' turns. The second examines the discourse-functional properties of those co-occurrences, with comparison to adult-directed adult English. We find: (1) children know/use antonyms at earlier ages than experimental studies have shown; (2) children use antonyms for mostly the same discursive purposes as adults do; (3) children can be categorized as being either `heavy' or `light' antonym users, and `heaviness' of antonym use seems to correlate to other aspects of antonym behaviour