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46
Red Cross. The district nurse has knowledge also of the many
services, voluntary and statutory in the area, which can help her
patient.
These services are especially useful where a home nurse is
visiting an elderly blind person living alone and who must be given
constant supervision and total nursing care. Requests are also made
through the district nurse for home helps, night sitters-in,
chiropody service, meals on wheels etc.
When nursing the heavy, helpless patient it is necessary for the
home nurse to know the art of lifting without incurring the occupational
hazard of a slipped disc. In these cases a mechanical hoist may
be provided and the relatives taught how to operate this single hand
ed.
The home nurse plays a vital part in the attempt to rehabilitate
a patient under her care recovering from a stroke, aiming to bring
the muscles back into working condition. This can only be achieved
by a gentle approach on her part giving helpful suggestions as well
as listening to the patient with a sympathetic ear, at the same time
encouraging him to talk freely. For his part, the patient realises
he is an active participant and that joint efforts are being made for
a real purpose.
Quite often the opinion and advice of the home nurse may be
sought on modern treatment of mental illness, and may tip the scales
in order to encourage a patient to enter a mental hospital as a
voluntary patient.
Certain other responsibilities in relation to nursing patients
in their own homes compels a district nurse to become competent in
the art of improvisation, i.e. where there is strictly limited
domestic equipment.
She has already learned the art of caring for the tools of her
trade e.g.. district bag, but even this requires considerable
resourcefulness on her part, and although the patient runs less risk
of infection at home, the methods of sterilising equipment and dress
ings must approximate to hospital standards.
Certain essential records of all patients, as well as report
making to the family doctor, must be kept by the nurse as this is
necessary for her own and the patients good, as well as provoding
useful information for the Medical Officer of Health in compiling of
statistics, and the great aim of all is prevention of disease.
Constant health teaching and giving of advice to relatives on
how to manage in between visits is an important part of the respons
ibilities of the home nurse she may be asked for advice on prevent
ion of accidents in the home, especially in the case of elderly
persons also for the healthy members of the household. In this
respect she will bear out and complement the work of the Health
Visitor who may also be attending the home.