‘Too many beds'

Press, 14 November 1977, Page 16

‘Too many beds'

PA Wellington, New Zealand has too many; long-stay beds for elderly i patients, according to an> Auckland geriatrician, Dri Jonathon Baskett. In some parts of New Zealand there were twice as many geriatric beds as there should be, he said in an interview in Wellington. Dr Baskett. who is attached to Middlemore Hospital, is touring New Zealand giving lectures to health workers involved in treating and rehabilitating old people. He said if the number of long-stay geriatric beds was reduced, and it was harder I for people to get into them, ■then more effort would be| ■made to rehabilitate the i elderly disabled. The Health Department! recommended that there 1 i should be 18 long-stay' : geriatric beds for ever,' 1000 ■persons aged over 65, he • said. 1 “I am convinced this figure

is wrong. In England they recommend only 10 per 1000, and I believe in some places this had been reduced to eight. “If the Health Department is still saying it should be 18, then it is suggesting we are not putting enough emphasis on rehabilitation and community services.” Geriatric medicine was not just the provision of beds: it involved careful diagnosis of ailments, and attainable goals for improvement. “People think of a ‘geriatric’ as someone who will never leave hospital. Most of my 90-year-old patients would object to this. Most geriatric medicine now involves rehabilitation aimed at making life easier. “Hospital boards are bei coming more aware of what jgeriatric medicine is trying to do and the public are ton. “But still there are hospital boards who do not realise I the economic advantages b? setting up good rehabilitation 1 and community services.”