View report page

59
8. The average age (81 years) of new residents is significant. It
demonstrates that the elderly are coming into residential homes at
a later stage in their lives, and it has important implications in
regard to staffing ratios as well as the attitudes to be fostered to
enable these elderly residents to live effectively.
9. A higher proportion of the 248 discharges (see Table II) than
one would expect were in respect of a return home (56 or 22%).
The majority of these were those brought into a home for short
term care although a few returned when they discovered that they
could not adjust to life in a communal home. The social workers
employed in the Department do their utmost to ensure that no
premature steps are taken to terminate tenancies or dispose of
owner-occupied properties until the resident reaches a decision
about permanent residence.
10. 117 residents were discharged to hospital but a proportion of
these returned and are included in the statistics in Table I. An
indication of the extent to which residents are cared for during
terminal illnesses can be gauged from the 49 deaths which occurred
in the residential homes.
11. With such a high average age group in residential homes, it
might be expected that the average length of stay is relatively
short. Yet there have been suggestions to the contrary. It is of
interest, therefore, to find that 293 residents (or 81% of the total)
at 31st March, 1966, had a stay not exceeding 3 years (see Table
III). Only 34 (or 9% of the total) had been resident for 5 years or
more. When read in conjunction with the other tables, these
statistics suggest that the purpose of the residential home is to
support a minority of the over 80 age group during the last 3 years
of their lives.