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Maternal Mortality.
As mentioned in the introduction to this
Report, no maternal deaths were reported during 1961.
GENERAL PROVISION OF HEALTH SERVICES.
Care of the Aged.
Quite apart from the admission to
hospital of the aged sick, there are many problems
associated with old age which increasingly demand
more and more attention. The Public Health
Department, is, as always, prepared to help in every
possible way, while our Health Visitors, Home Nurses
and Home Helps continue to assist the aged by every
means within their power. Once again the Old
People's Welfare Committee has been able in many ways
to assist the statutory services, by providing those
little extras which do not lie within the province
either of the local authority or of the local health
authority.
It would be foolish to state that the
geriatric situation is satisfactory, either in Friern
Barnet or in North London as a whole. I hasten to
add that I invariably obtain what assistance is
available from the various hospitals which ser/e the
Area. None the less, it is a tragic fact that the
admission of the elderly sick to hospital presents an
increasingly urgent problem, a problem which at the
moment seems virtually unsolvable. It is admittedly
a fact that the Ministry of Health has issued a ten
year Command Plan which visualises the re-building
and extension of existing hospitals and the provision
of new hospitals. If this scheme includes the
provision of a great many additional geriatric beds,
this will be a worth-while contribution. Unless,
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