THE CARE OF THE AGED.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 25, 30 January 1908, Page 2

THE CARE OF THE AGED.

A PROBLEM TO BE PACED. The need for an institution for the treatment of persons whose sickness is> "old ago" mis ' been emphasised by a. couplo of incidents lately. Difficulties arose over the case of q woman sent in from the Hutt district, and the attitude of the Hospital 'trustees led members of tho Borough Council to make adverse comment. Interviewed about this subject yesterday the chairman of the Trustees (the lion. C. M. Luke) said that the gentlemen who had found fault with the.tiustees for declining to accept the responsibility of maintaining an aged member of the Hutt community are scarcely aware of tho purpose of a hospital in making such comment. The person on whose behalf an application was mado for admission to the hospital was leforied to is suffering from senile debility, which is not a disease for treatment in tho Home for Incurable Diseases. Sho was, howcve.r, in ' so weak a state on arrival at the hospital that Dr. livart deeMed to admit her for treatment in the general hospital, and when in a fehorfc time it' wus thought she could be removed, arrangements would require to be made to .secure' her a comfortable home. This decision, way sent on to tho Lower Hutt Council, some members of which think that they" ure tieatcd most unjustly by tho Hospital Trustees. It must be remembered, Mr. Luke adds, that tho Homo for incurables can accommodate only the limited number of forty patients, who /require more particular attention than old people ; tho accommodation is ahvays most severely taxed, and were tho trustees to decido to find room for all old people gradually losing their faculties and lingering on for a prolonged period, yet not requiring any paiticular medical or surgical attention, the expense of the hospital would "be enormously increased, as tho Hospital Trustees would find Ihe hospital overcrowded to tho exclusion of cases for which it was primarily established. It must be remembered aleo that to maintain, if it wero possible, mixed crises of chionic disease and old people, represents heavy expense. Hospital treatment is more than double- tho expense involved in the maintaining of old people elsewhere, and, theret'oie, apart from the fact that old people can be properly and kindly looked after outside Oi a hospital, for the sake oi'economy it is inadvisable, in Mr. Luke's opinion, to further embarrass an institution which, in the treatment of proper cases is already a very heavy charge on the public.