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41
now two rooms at Brentside Infants School are being used
with kitchen equipment belonging to the Womens Voluntary
Service.. The cooking has so far been done by a member of
the Womens Voluntary Service but in future a paid cook
will be employed. It is felt that the scheme is already
meeting an urgent need in the Greenford and Northolt areas,
and it is hoped that eventually every house-bound and
lonely old person in this area can be helped.
NATIONAL ASSISTANCE ACT, 1948.
Section 47.
This section provides for the removal to a suitable
hospital or other place of persons who:
"(a) are suffering from grave chronic diseases or being
aged, 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."
It cannot be stressed too strongly that compulsorily
to remove old people who have lived for many years in
their own accommodation, albeit unsatisfactory, is a great
dis-service unless there is no possible alternative. Every
effort is therefore made to avoid using these powers.
In the first instance such persons are given assistance
by the Home Help, Home Nursing, Health Visiting and
Laundry Service. If, despite this it is considered that
removal to hospital or an Old Persons Home is the only
solution, persuasion is used where at all possible.
It was fortunately only necessary to use compulsion
on one occasion during the year. This was in the case of
an old lady of 83 who lived by herself in indescribably
dirty conditions. She was very senile and frail and had
several times been found collapsed and unable to rise.
She refused all offers of assistance and was therefore
compulsorily removed to hospital where she died some weeks
later.
Section 50 - Burial of the Dead.
7 burials were carried out for which the Council
accepted financial responsibility. In four of these the
total cost was recovered, in two part of the cost, and in
the remaining one the amount was irrecoverable.