SOCIAL SERVICES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22708, 22 October 1935, Page 7

SOCIAL SERVICES

RELATION TO DISTRICT NURSING CLOSER CO-ORDINATION SUGGESTED A suggestion that district nursing schemes, to be thoroughly efficient, should bo correlated with all other social services in the community was put forward last evening by Dr Siedeberg MTvinnon in the course of an address delivered at the half-yearly meeting of the Roslyn District Nursing Association. There should, said Dr Siedeberg MTvinnon, be a central relief information bureau to which doctors and others desiring to help people requiring relief or special comforts could apply for information where such assistance could be obtained. It frequently happened that when a woman entered a hospital for treatment her medical adviser might notice that she required extra comforts or some domestic assistance daily to enable her to lie up for a few days or weeks. He would not know where to go for each kind of service, nor which was the correct organisation to which to send his patient for very necessary help. He would know in a vague way that there was some organisation willing to supply malt or extra milk to expectant mothers, while another had warm underclothing or blankets to distribute on a doctor’s recommendation. He would know that there was some means by which domestic help could be given free, or on payment of a small sum, but to whom to apply or to send his patient he would have no idea, and it was quite possible that many other doctors were in the same dilemma. There were numerous social service organisations in the city, but as far as could be ascertained no doctor had ever received a list of what type of relief each organisation was responsible for. There should bo provision made whereby doctors could ring up a central bureau, stating their requirements for patients, to whom they should be able to give a docket for this bureau. From there, the patient or person requiring relief would be sent on to the correct social organisation. It would also be a great help if each body dealing with relief would specialise, so that donors of goods would know which depot to take them to, for, unfortunately, the depression had brought into existence so many relief bodies that these were all more or less overlapping, so that those who desired to assist were apt to become confused. Moreover, under _ the existing system it was an impossibility for the Government authorities to gain any idea of the amount of relief required or given in the Dominion. Dealing with the question of hospital almoners, or, as they were known in some parts of the world, hospital social workers, Dr Siedeberg M‘lvinnou said she had been glad to see in the last report of the Director-general of Health that a beginning had been made with hospital social service in Auckland, but only in a modified form as a hospital after-care department. The scheme had not been elaborated and she understood that it was chiefly a nursing service for continuing and following up the treatment carried on in hospital, not a service which took any active part in recordin" or trying to improve poor environment, inquiring into any special domestic difficulties with a view to help, or reporting back to the hospital on these conditions. She would therefore suggest the establishment of the office of almoner as a link between the hospital and the patient’s home, not as a nurse to continue dressings or other aftertreatment (that fell to the lot of the district nurse), but as a capable, tactful and well-trained social worker who, with an assistant, would have her office in the hospital buildings, and whose duty it would be to receive from the attending physician or ward sister definite notice when a patient would be discharged. She would then visit the home and report back to hospital the circumstances connected with it before the patient had left. The decision could then be made whether it would be advisable for that patient to stay a few days longer. An almoner’s department was first started in England in 1895, and 10 years later at the Massachusetts General Hospital in America. Some Australian hospitals had an almoner’s department, but- New Zealand lagged behind. She would like to make a plea, said the speaker in conclusion, for the organisation and co-ordination of all the relief societies with a central relief information bureau, and for hospital almoners, with offices and record forms at the hospitals. Dr Siedeberg MTvinnon then moved the following resolution: —“That this meeting appoint two delegates to wait on the Mayor’s Unemployment Relief Committee with the object of bringing together the heads of the various relief organisations to discuss the formation of a central relief information bureau.” The Mayor of St. Hilda (Mr H. H. Leary) seconded the motion, which was carried, and the speaker was accorded a hearty vote of thanks. Dr A. R. Falconer and Mr J. Dick were appointed delegates, in accordance with the resolution.