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PREVENTION OF ILLNESS,
CARE AND AFTER CARE
Section 28
Recuperative Holidays
The Area health staff continued to be responsible for dealing with
applications for recuperative holidays and during 1955, 235 applications
were received compared with 279 the previous year. Of these, 188
were approved, 41 were not approved and six were withdrawn before
action could be taken.
DOMESTIC HELP SERVICE
Section 29
The total number of cases provided with home help during the year
was 1,623. This shows an increase from 1,499 during 1954. This
increase occurred in spite of a slight fall in new cases which were 67
less than 1954. It can be seen from the table below that by far the
greatest provision of help is to the chronic sick, who include the aged
and infirm. Once service is provided to these patients it has very often
to be continued over a long period, generally until the patient dies or is
admitted to hospital, and it is this factor which is causing the total
number of cases receiving service to rise. In short, the cases are not
ceasing at as high a rate as they are commencing. At the end of the
year there were approximately 170 cases who had been receiving help
for more than three years.
The considerable increase in the volume of the work of the service
can be illustrated by the following figures for the past three years:—