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GENERAL PROVISION OF HEALTH SERVICES
Care of the Aged
Quite apart from the admission to hospital of the aged infirm,
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.
The Clinic for Old Persons which I mentioned in my Annual
Report for 1960 and which is being held at the Old People's
Centre, was not opened until early in 1962. The operation of this
Clinic therefore falls within the Annual Report for that year,
although it may now be said that the Clinic is performing a very
useful purpose. One of my Assistant County Medical Officers
(Dr. E. Waterhouse), together with a competent nurse, attend
this Clinic every alternate week, since the Clinic alternates on
Friday afternoons with the session held in Wood Green.
At the request of the Local Medical Committee, I attended
a session of the Committee in London, so that the object of the
Clinic might be more fully discussed and the co-operation of local
general practitioners obtained. The meeting was entirely successful,
all the points were mutually agreed upon, and I am extremely
happy to be able to report that general practitioners are cooperating
with us to the full.
It would be foolish to state that the geriatric situation is
satisfactory, either in Southgate or in North London as a whole.
I hasten to add that I invariably obtain what assistance is available
from the various hospitals which serve 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 certainly 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
worthwhile contribution. Unless, however, this substantial contribution
is forthcoming, the gradual ageing of the population of these
islands will continue to present a problem, a pitiable problem,
which none of us can afford to neglect.
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