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MORTUARY FACILITIES
The arrangements entered into between the Borough Council and the local Hospital
Management Committee for the provision of mortuary facilities at Whipps Cross Hospital
have continued during the year.
CARE OF THE AGED
Each day's post brings its problems in connection with the aged. Either young couples
who have bought a house with an aged person as sitting tenant sharing the inconveniences
of meagre domestic facilities with older people, etc., older people or relatives who no
longer feel they can face up to the responsibilities of looking after aged parents,and
request assistance for someone else to take over the responsibility of caring for them.
My colleagues and I have great sympathy with both sides in this too familiar problem
and a great deal of health visitors', administrative officers" and medical officers' time
is spent endeavouring to assist in cases of this nature.
There is no easy solution and the facts of each case have to be sifted with great
care and diplomacy. It is time consuming and in many cases so little positive action
can be taken to alleviate what has grown into big problems as far as those who are concerned
view it. Many of these old people do not qualify for either Welfare, Hostel or
Part III accommodation.
There are two types of lonely people those who are cut off from their contemporararies
through circumstances over which they have little or no control and those who are
lonely by temperament. In the first case the basic problem is housing accommodation,
accommodation where they can have a certain amount of companionship and yet retain the
independence which is so dear to them. Even in the worst of cases personal health services
can do an enormous amount to enable the elderly to live in comparative ease during their
declining years. In the second case that is those who are lonely by temperament, the
greatest difficulty arises., and the most time consuming cases are those elderly people
who through their eccentricities either refuse help or obstruct when it is granted.
The personal health services with health visiting domestic help allied to the
Borough of Leyton Welfare Services Committee meals on wheels and domiciliary chiropody,
deal adequately with the problem of looking after people in their own homes, even when
environmental conditions are unsatisfactory.
HOMES FOR THE ELDERLY
In my previous Annual Report I wrote at length regarding the problems of aged
persons who required a little supervision and assistance. The Council have purchased
four properties, three of which have been adapted for elderly people. The accommodation
provides a separate bedsitting room for each tenant, with communal kitchens on each
floor where two persons share a gas cooker.
Prom my observations it is apparent that, in the main, the tenants are settling
down well and enjoying the companionship of their fellow tenants.
There is a pressing need for infinitely greater numbers of small simple but convenient
and easily run homes for the elderly in the Borough.
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