‘Tragic Exile’ For Aged

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32145, 14 November 1969, Page 20

‘Tragic Exile’ For Aged

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, Nov. 13. The old were being discriminated against in the standard of medical care they got and where they got it, Dr J. L. Newman, an Auckland doctor and vice-president of the Auckland Old People’s Welfare Council, said today. “The care of old people suffering from a long-term sickness is not just a matter of kindly custodial care,” he said. “Geriatrics is now emerging as a form of specialised medicine in its own right, but recognition of that right is slow. “Many of the ill aged are set to custodial care unneces-

sarily, a tragic exile for themselves, wasteful to the community and unworthy of the medical profession. “Progress is hampered by medical conservatism and public and official misconception that old folk can be looked after in adapted or second-rate buildings, that they only need an inferior kind of nursing skill, and can be looked after by any doctor.

“Can these ideas be justified?” he asked. “The traditional conception of a hospital ward in which strangers are thrown together to use a single room as a bedroomsitting room and lavatory is out of date and inconsiderate, even for ordinary patients. It is even more out of tune with decent standards in the case of the old, who may have to spend months in these surroundings.” The need was for single rooms, including wardrobes, for 90 per cent of patients

who should be up and dressed. There should be day rooms for social activities, separate baths and toilets, and day wards for continuing rehabilitation, with wide corridoni with hand-rails for exercise. He said he believed th* new Auckland Hospital building had no geriatric ward, a) though the hospital woul4 have elderly patients wlqj would stay in hospital twice as long as others. (An average of 38 days, against 17.) “Green Lane has a geriatric ward in the oldest part of the hospital, no geriatric specialist and, recently, not even a physician. What would be said if heart cases were not under a cardiologist? “Middlemore Hospital has 3000 on the waiting list but no geriatric service.