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39
NATIONAL ASSISTANCE ACT, 1948.
Section 50—Burial of the Dead.
Seven burials were carried out during the year for which the
Council accepted financial responsibility.
In two cases the full cost was recovered and in the remaining
five instances the cost was written off as totally irrecoverable.
Section 47.
This Section deals with securing the necessary care and
attention for persons who
(infirm or physically incapacitated are living in insanitary
conditions, and
(b) are unable to devote to themselves, and are not
receiving from other persons, proper care and attention.
Three such cases were dealt with. In the first an elderly
woman was admitted to West Middlesex Hospital for observation
while with the help of her relatives attempts were made to clear her
house of the accumulations of rubbish. This was portly accomplished
when the woman was discharged from hospital, there being little
wrong with her beyond being eccentric.
The second, also a woman living alone, was taken to West
Middlesex Hospital following a complaint regarding the dirty
condition of her house. She was a chronic case and subsequently
died in hospital.
The other case concerned an old lady in poor health unable to
look after herself properly who lived with her maid who was also
aged and no longer a suitable person to attend to the old lady, who
went into a private nursing home voluntarily. The maid refused
to leave the house and is still there.
PUBLIC HEALTH LAUNDRY SERVICE.
The Public Health Laundry Service has now settled into a
routine and there seems no reason to anticipate any particular
change in the situation.
We can now expect that the number of cases on our list will
be in the region of 30 each week, all of these being incontinent.
There is a steady change of persons using the service by immigration,
deaths, removal to hospital, discharge from hospital etc.
It is, however, of undoubted value inasmuch as the relatives
of persons who are incontinent have had lifted from them a severe
burden which makes the nursing problem so much less onerous.
There is no doubt that many of these people would have to be in
hospital if the laundry service was not available. From this aspect
alone considerable economy is effected in the National Health