Action for aged ‘urgent’

Press, 24 April 1980, Page 6

Action for aged ‘urgent’

The Minister of Health (Mr Gair) was asked yesterday to give urgent attention to improving the lot of elderly people by implementing the 1978 Health Department report on home help serVl The North Canterbury Hospital Board wants Mr Gair to implement parts or the . report that would not. entail a lot of money. It was reasonable for hospital boards to expect some positive moves on home help services, especially as so much time had elapsed since extensions to the services had been recommended. Professor D. W. Beaven said Mr Gair’s own committee had said that even a modest improvement in home help services would save many old people from being forced to live in institutions. It was unacceptable to have about a quarter of the beds in general hospitals being taken up by elderly people who were inappropriately placed there because the Government s and Health Departments policies in geriatric care had failed. The guidelines on oea numbers for long-stay elderly patients set by the Health Department in 1977 should be rejected as they were based on British and Scottish research, Professor Beaven said. “These guidelines are based on high population density, good transport sys-

terns, and closer relationships between faimily members,” he said. “What is needed is New zQealand research on whatl to base guidelines. The i figures . for the present) guidelines need reviewing.” ( .. / Christchurch hEid special problems about 'caring for the elderly, v ■ It was a matltt’.r of the greatest urgency that the proposed day unit; for geriatric patients at! Princess Margaret Hospital- be ready for use by next wi. Diter. “Christchurch re imams the only main centr e in the country without an assessment unit which is an integral part of assessment arrangements (for* elderly patients),” Professor Beaven said.

Special incentbres were needed to attracts two or three more geriatricians to Christchurch, and the board had the right to expect support from the G bvernment and the Hospital Boards’

Association on the need foil well trained specialists in geriatric medicine.