Children In Hospital Have Week-ends Off

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31152, 31 August 1966, Page 2

Children In Hospital Have Week-ends Off

The needs of children in hospital are being met in a variety of ways, as it becomes accepted that the emotional effects of being away from home can, in some cases, be almost as serious as the physical illness needing hospital treatment.

At the Birmingham Children's Hospital, in the industrial Midlands, a five-day week has been introduced in two wards. This means that some sick children now spend the week-end in their own homes.

Although schemes of this kind work at one or two general and psychiatric hospitals in Britain, the idea is still new in children’s hospitals, and a senior official described it as “a pioneer project from which we hope to learn much that will help us ”

The five-day week means the complete closure of both wards at a week-end, when nursing staff are off duty. On Friday afternoons, some patients are discharged, others return home merely

said, “are delighted to have their children home for the week-end, and we do not believe that they will be worried by the idea." Another consideration in starting the scheme has been a shortage of nurses, and careful discussion between medical, nursing and administrative staff preceded the introduction of the scheme. The matron (Miss M. Woods) said: “The scheme means telescoping the needs of the patients into a fiveday week, it means, too, that parents have an opportunity to contribute to their children’s recovery.” It means, as well, an opportunity to offer married nurses a return to nursing with week-ends off.

for the week-end, and any unfit to be moved because of unexpected complications are temporarily accommodated in other wards. On Mondays, those who require further treatment are readmitted. Home conditions are taken into account before any decision is made and medical staff instruct parents about the care of their children. During the week-end the patients become the responsibility of their family doctors. “Many parents," a doctor

The plan also reduces the time spent in hospital by some children after operations, and thus cuts down the waiting lists that now face surgeons. Whenever possible, operations are arranged for between Monday afternoons and Thursday mornings, and some children return home within 48 hours of a minor operation. Tonsilectomy is excluded from the scheme because of the need for special postoperative attention. Between 60 and 70 patients are treated in each ward monthly. A random sample taken in one ward, where there are 18 beds, revealed several children who were looking forward to spending the week-end at home. They included a small boy who had received half of the required investigation into his illness, and an epileptic girl having treatment for the adjustment of drug dosage. Two children, admitted early in the week suffering from poisoning after swallowing tablets, were ready to be discharged on the Friday, and one or two others, unfit to be moved, were to be accommodated during the week-end in another ward.