£l500 Needed Next Year For Therapy Service

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28397, 2 October 1957, Page 14

£l500 Needed Next Year For Therapy Service

The Aged People's Welfare

Council was maintaining an extensive and worthwhile occupational therapy service for elderly people in Christchurch, said Dr W. I. Paterson at the quarterly meeting of the council last evening. The service was expensive, however, and cost something like £l3O a week, without the salary paid to Miss J. E. Sturgess, the council’s therapist, which was paid by the Health Department. If Miss Sturgess’s salary was not renewed by the Health Department in December the money on hand would only be sufficient to enable the service to be carried on till January, 1958, he said. Almost £1 a week was spent on each person receiving help through the therapy scheme, with about 50 receiving attention in their homes and about 30 taking classes two mornings a week at Langford House. The service should not be discontinued, as the effect on the morale of elderly people as a result of them doing something useful with their time was great, he said. "The present service, although hampered by insufficient storage space and equipment, and an inadequate workroom, must continue.”

Raising of Money

A sum of £l5OO was authorised for the scheme next year, the executive committee to make attempts to raise the money. Cofistituent members of the council will assist in raising the money, much of which will have to come by public gift. A provisional report on accommodation for aged persons in Christchurch was presented by Dr. H. R. Donald. There was a minimum of 150 aged persons in Christchurch who were infirm and required nursing and care, but not special hospital treatment, he reported. A further 133 were frail and needed supervision. The number of fit aged persons obtained from City Council records was 59 couples and just less- than 600 single persons. It was, however, impossible to estimate the

number who were aged and confused, he said.

"The Mental Hygiene Division of the Health Department has said that it is undesirable to duplicate any form of existing psychiatric services under the pretext of providing more acceptable forms of accommodation," said Dr. Donald. It had said that persons suffering from psychiatric illnesses needed special provisions for accommodation as well as nursing and medical services. These provisions were, as a rule, most readily and efficiently supplied in a psychiatric hospital, and because there were certain well-established prejudices against such hospitals was not sufficient justification for the duplication of psychiatric services, according to a statement from the division. Disagreement “I don’t agree with the Health Department policy in this matter." said Mrs R. M. Macfarlane. "Old people should not be put in mental institutions, but should have separate geriatric accommodation. “The elderly people are just as happy in mental institutions as they would be in a special hospital, and they are better looked after than they would be anywhere else at present,” said Dr. F. O. Bennett. There would be enormous difficulties in the staffing of a special hospital for the care of mentally ill aged persons, as well as financial and legal difficulties, said Dr. Donald. A sub-committee of Messrs S. W. Ayers and J. W. Huggins, and Miss E. H. Smith was appointed to investigate psychiatric accommodation and treatment of aged persons in Christchurch.