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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.
One might mention here the prospect of setting up at least
one workshop where elderly persons can be usefully employed.
This will provide a truly valuable service, both of clinical and,
to a certain degree, of financial benefit.
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 very competent
nurse, attend this Clinic every alternate week, since the Clinic
alternates on Friday afternoons with the session held in Southgate.
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 co-operating with us to the full.
It would be foolish to state that the geriatric situation
is satisfactory, either in Wood Green, 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
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
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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