Volunteers To Assist Templeton Staff Sought

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30487, 8 July 1964, Page 14

Volunteers To Assist Templeton Staff Sought

A corps of voluntary workers willing to assist the regular staff at Templeton Hospital was the chief need of the establishment, the medical superintendent (Dr. J. F. M. Stenhouse) told members of the hospital's welfare council.

To meet this requirement the council formed a subcommittee to investigate what could be done to aid the hospital. ■ • In framing the counciFs policy for next year the chairman (the Rev. D. G. Shaw) asked how the council could best be of assistance to the staff. Dr. Stenhouse said that while certain material aids were needed for training purposes, the need for voluntary assistance was the “number one” requirement He said the staff at the hospital at the present time was very meagre. If a number of voluntary helpers could visit the hospital and do perhaps three hours’ work with patients on such things as recreational activity then it would benefit both the staff and the patients. Dr. Stenhouse said work with the mentally subnormal was “pretty heavy going” and took a lot out of the staff. He warned that to obtain such voluntary workers would require a great deal of hard work. They had to be found and arrangements would have to be made to transport them to and from the hospital. If they could be recruited then staff could soon incorporate them into the needs of the hospital. “They do not have to be professionally trained, but if

any are then so much the better,” he said. Dr. Stenhouse thanked the welfare council for Its good work during the last year. In particular, he said, it had been largely responsible for breaking the barrier between Templeton and the outside world. “Templeton’s main handicap now I feel is Its 12mile distance from the city,” he said.

The new contacts had been of very great benefit to the patients at the hospital, he added.

In his annual report Mr Shaw referred to the patient adoption scheme, by which two-thirds of those at Templeton had been "adopted” by groups, organisations, and individuals outside.

He said he looked forward to a stepping-up of the infiltration of the surrounding community into hospital life. He reported that the Templeton Hospital chapel committee had asked its architect to go ahead with working drawings. He said that about two-thirds of the estimated £20,000 needed for the construction of the chapel was in hand.