Need Seen For More Help In Home For Old People

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27445, 3 September 1954, Page 6

Need Seen For More Help In Home For Old People

“The care of old people, and the problems which it raises, command an ever-increasing share -of public attention,” says an article in a recent issue of the “British Medical Journal.” “This is not entirely due to the fact that there are more old people in the community nowadays,” the article • says. “It is partly the result of ■'the altered social circumstances in which we live, with fewer children able and willing to look after their aged relatives; partly of medical advance, especially antibiotic therapy, which is reducing deaths among .the elderly from pneumonia and partly of the difficulty of securing admission to hospital for those old men and women who require it, and particularly for those suffering, from chronic disease. “While it has become increasingly important to make hosiptal accommodation available for those old people for whom there is no alternative, at the same time it is essential to do everything possible . to assist those who are able, with help, to continue to live in their own homes. As things are, there are many old people, gravely ill, living at home under conditions almost unbelievably bad. Many of them have no hope of full restoration to health. “The patient’s health may owe far more to his home conditions than to the disease he suffers from or the* treatment he receives for it. The plight of these' seriously disabled and elderly people, many of them lying in dreary squalor, is the most compelling of all the problems of old age. Delays in Admission “Many old people suffering from chronic sickness of this kind can be treated satisfactorily only in hospital, but there is often great difficulty and long delay in securing their admission to hospital, a difficulty which existed even before the new order of 1948 and not likely to be adequately met by the restoration of relieving-officer powers. The report of the British Medical Association’s Committee on the Care of Treatment of the Elderly and Infirm directed particular attention to patients not able to fend for themselves. There is need not only for additional beds for these cases and for their sorting and energetic treatment, ’but for the development of accommodation of the ‘half-way’ type, since lack of home care on discharge from hospital is, a common cause of early breakdown calling for readmission to hospital. The concept of the ‘day hospital* is being developed at Oxford and the results of the experiment there will be watched with interest all over the country. During the last five years the National Corporation for the Care of Old People has had encouraging results from a

scheme which enables old people who have been patients in certain hospitals to go away to convalescent homes for periods up to eight weeks. Payment is made by the regional hospital boards. “In these days any kind of insti.ut ion al care 1 is relatively expensive; and sometimes old people are unwilling to go to hospital, however great their need, fearing that to do so will entail the irretrievable disruption of what home is left to them. Many efforts have been directed to making life easier for old people, the provision of *meals on wheels,’ laundry services, and chiropody among them. But apart from medical and nursing care, what most old people who live in their own homes want is help that will enable them'to carry through the ordinary routine of independent living. Sometimes 4his help can be provided by members or the family circle; sometimes the elderly are dependent for it on the good offices of neighbours. For others a home-help service is essential; many aged invalids at present dependent on neighbourly help place a load which is unreasonable to expect them to bear. That is not to say that there is not a great place for voluntary effort and voluntary service, but the care of an elderly patient should not be allowed to develop into an intolerable burden. Spirit of Service “The nursing of these old people by district nurses affords a notable example of what can be achieved under unpromising conditions, given an organisation—such as the Queen’s Institute —imbued with the spirit of service. The amount of call on home help services will obviously depend on individual circumstances; for some patients help with the weekly washing may suffice, for others help on two or three days a week, or for an hour or two daily. Obviously no homehelp scheme can provide a 24-hour service; but old people who require such a service should not be left in their own homes. The clubs for old people which are being so widely developed might be encouraged to function not merely as centres in which old people could gather for social intercourse and recreation, centres from which a voluntary seWice might radiate to the homes of those who dre unable to visit the club premises. “As a long-term policy, the approach to the welfare of old people must be along much more positive lines, directed to the promotion of healthy living, the conservation of active interest, and the prevention of invalidism. But in the meantime the wretchedness of many decrepit old men and women is unworthy of a civilised society.”