Care For Infirm Urged By C.W.L

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31663, 26 April 1968, Page 2

Care For Infirm Urged By C.W.L

Because the Health Department had no category for frail and infirm elderly persons it seemed to think they did not exist, Mrs A. R. Mac Diarmid, of Burw o o d Country Women’s Institute said at the annual meeting of the Canterbury Federation of Country Women’s Institutes on Wednesday.

Mrs Mac Diarmid was speaking to her institute’s remit: that the federation support the Aged People’s Welfare Council in its plea that hospital accommodation for the frail and infirm be incorporated in all its homes.

The department had three categories for aged people. There were those who could care for themselves with help in their own homes, the aged ambulants cared for in homes, and those really ill who were in hospital. “There is no category for

the frail and infirm, but we all know they do exist. The department’s attitude is almost impossible to understand. It seems to be strangled with its own red tape," she said. Putting these elderly persons in hospital Was a waste of public money. They did not need specialised nursing, but kind nursing care. Private homes did not want them as they were not suitably equipped to accommodate them. Although some homes were good, bed care in others was shocking, she said.

Most elderly persons in homes would much prefer to enter a hospital wing in the home, where they were close to their friends, knew the nurses and staff, and continued to have their own doctor treat them.

“Ten years ago the Aged People’s Welfare Council had

land left to it- in Lyttelton for a home for the aged and £lO,OOO from a Rotary appeal was set aside for the project, which was to include a hospital wing. Turned Down “The Health Department refused to allow the building of the home on the grounds that provision of such accommodation was not an acceptable function of welfare councils. “In 1965 the Manchester Unity Friendly Society gained approval far the erection of a home for 40 residents, but the inclusion ef an infirm wing with 20 beds was specifically denied. “The board of governors has pressed unceasingly for its reconsideration without success,” she said. It had now been decided to go ahead with the home and do without the wing. This was an important remit which would help old people through the last years of their lives, she said. It was passed without opposition.