Geriatric hospitals

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33611, 13 August 1974, Page 12

Geriatric hospitals

'Sir, —What is urgently ! needed in the care of geriatric patients, is that care should be made available, immediately, within their means. Either the Government should allocate sufficient funds to hospital boards for geriatric wings at general hospitals, and similarly for extensions to church homes, or undertake a close survey of the maintenance costs of private hospitals, and decide whether economies could be effected in their administration. If not, then the grant per patient should be increased. To the logically minded, it is difficult to reconcile the private hospital’s pleas that they are running at a loss, with the avowed intentions of at least two in Christchurch, to go ahead with extensions, to double their patient accommodation. This just doesn’t “add up.” Few homes in New Zealand are geared to care for 80 and 90-year-old relatives — many of them blind, crippled or incontinent —24 hours a day. And I think it is unreasonable to expect that children of these old people, many of them themselves over 65, should attempt such care. — Yours, ptc CITIZEN. August 10, 1974.