ADELAIDE MISSION’S WORK FOR AGED

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31322, 18 March 1967, Page 20

ADELAIDE MISSION’S WORK FOR AGED

In caring for the aged it is important to provide as much independent living as possible, according to the Rev. Erwin Vogt, of Adelaide, who has “residential clubs” catering for 287 old people in his care as superintendent of the Adelaide Central Mission. Mr Vogt said that the clubs, of 25 to 30 people, ran their own affairs, including entertainment and looking after the grounds of the selfcontained flats in which each lives. Each person cares for himself, but was linked by telephone to the hospital in the grounds of the village for the aged. If a person was ill all he had to do was dislodge the telephone, and a nurse would be sent to investigate. The concept of total care was very important, he said. It recognised that all people wished to be independent, even if deprived of some of their capacities, but it gave protection and security in the knowledge that one would be looked after for the rest of one’s life.

Mr Vogt said that more than 99 per cent of the aged people cared for by the Adelaide Mission had only a pension as income. The mission’s policy was that all its facilities should be available to those in this situation.

The rehabilitation centre working with old people had done important work in changing their attitudes of mind about age. The emphasis was on showing aged people that although they might have some disabilities they were still normal. This work had “kept an impressive number from becoming bedfast,” he added. Mr Vogt said that his mission had controlling interests in one city and two regional commercial radio stations. The profit from the running of the stations, which were doing very well, was used for the mission’s social work.

A big new factor in his mission’s work was that it provided a programme seven days and seven nights a week for all kinds of people, including difficult teen-agers and “go-go girls.” Many of the problems brought to the mission were peculiar to the affluent society, he said. It would make an interesting sociological study to find out why the affluent society had an increased number of suicides and other difficulties.