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produced no suitable applicants; the Council therefore decided to
offer bursaries to two nurses who were anxious to train as Health
Visitors : the selected candidates have signed undertakings that after
qualifying, they will give at least two years' service in the Borough.
The Maternity Hospital was fully booked throughout the year.
The appointment of a Resident Medical Officer made itpossible to
extend the services given to the patients. At the request of the
Ministry of Health and with the concurrence of the Central Midwives
Board, the stay of patients in the Hospital was reduced from 14 days
to 10 days after confinement. This is admittedly an emergency
measure to deal with a difficult situation: the unsatisfactory housing
situation and the difficulty of getting help in the homes make it most
necessary that maternity beds in institutions should be used to their
highest possible capacity. Under this new arrangement, from
80—90 patients were given accommodation each month during the
latter part of the year.
The chief difficulty at the Hospital has been the shortage of
domestic staff; this need has never been met adequately since the
Hospital was opened, and the condition is getting worse. The
Nursing Staff of a Maternity Hospital cannot be allowed to scrub
floors. It should be realised that if this extreme shortage of domestic
staff persists, it will threaten the very existence of the Hospital.
Although wages of domestic workers in institutions have been
greatly increased, they still compare unfavourably with the wages
which can be earned in private establishments: they also compare
unfavourably with what can be earned in industry, and with the
present appeal to women to return to industry, the outlook is very
serious.
The attention of the public was drawn during the year to two
important matters: one affecting children and the other affecting
old people.
The Curtis Report indicates clearly that there is room for
considerable improvement in the care and supervision of "boardedout"
children, both in institutions and in private homes. The
institutions in the Borough for the care of children are conducted
by voluntary organisations; they are visited frequently and the
children are all very well cared for.
The welfare of the aged presents a more difficult problem ;
and this problem is becoming and will become more urgent as the
proportion of elderly people in the population increases.
Civilisations may be judged by the way they look after their
old people. Primitive races solved the question by exterminating
all those who were too old to be useful: inhuman no doubt, but at
any rate there was no pretence about it. More advanced civilisations
kept their old people alive and ultimately acknowledged a
responsibility towards them—a responsibility which was discharged
officially on a strictly impersonal and institutional basis. This
century has seen considerable advances, of which the most important
was the Old Age Pension with its implied recognition of the natural
desire of all old people to spend their closing years in homes of their
own, no matter how humble, with their personal possessions around
them.
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