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60
by the home nurses complementing the local medical practitioner
service by carrying out nursing services at home
under the direction of the family doctor. Other lesser
functions which the nurses perform are (1) providing home
treatment for cases of tuberculosis and (2) dealing with
cases referred by hospitals some in preparation for X ray
investigations and others for the purpose of continuing
post operative or other specific care.
The provision of hospital accommodation is certainly
far more expensive to the State than the provision of
facilities to provide nursing care at home, A recent re
port on hospital accorrmodation showed the cost per patient
to range between £16 and £19 per week. The latest costing
return regarding the Home Nursing Service in Area 7, shows
the average cost per visit to be 4s. Od. A daily visit by
a nurse would, on this basis, cost £1. 8s. Od. per week.
Added to this might be the cost of providing a home help,
also through the County Health Service, for, say, 15 hours
during the week. The Home Help Service costs 3s. 6d, per
hour, so this would add £2. 12s. 6d. per week to the cost
of the nurse, a total of £4, 0s. 6d. Medicines or dressings,
whether prescribed for use at home or in hospital, pre
sumably cost much the same - the chemists' charge on the
one hand will be balanced by the hospital dispensary costs
on the other.
These figures regarding the cost of the respective
services are not included with a view to criticising one
service as against the other. They are intended to show
that the Home Nursing Service is performing a most valuable
service for the community at a relatively small cost.
When the compilation of special statistics regarding
Home Nursing was commenced some years ago, the intention
was that they should be of a purely experimental nature.
Each year some different aspect of the work has been investigated.
This year special attention has been directed
to answering the question "Who makes use of the Home
Nursing Service?"
Table A shows that 83.1% of the total cases were
referred by medical practitioners, 14.6% by hospitals and
2.3% came from other sources.
Further research has been made to show whether the
medical practitioners make a uniform demand on the service,
or whether there is any noteworthy feature to be derived