HOME AID FOR MOTHERS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28980, 22 August 1959, Page 14

HOME AID FOR MOTHERS

Recommendation To Committee

(New, Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 21.

The Consultative Committee on Pre-school Health Services would be well justified in recommending that the Government take firm steps to build up a home aid service, and there was justification for suggesting that it be subsidised, said Mr G. S. Orr, on behalf of the Health Department, at the final public sitting of the committee today. If the Government undertook a comprehensive recruiting campaign, and trief training and some respectability were given to the neglected art, the existing home aid service could be built on.

Until last year, home aid workers were available at a subsidised rate to private persons at £5 and £5 5s a week. Care should be taken to ensure that they went where they were required, he said. The mothers who needed help in the home were those with sick infants, and those who found domestic duties burdensome The first class of case could be handled by a visiting nurse. If a Karitane nurse was employed in other cases, she was relieving the mother of her duties or doing household chores, which was a waste of her training.

Many mothers who needed help could not employ Karitane nurses because of the expense of paying them or because they could not accommodate them in their small homes.