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uncertain and who might otherwise fall forward off the toilet seat. It is important that the
disabled person should not have to wait until someone is available to help him as this help
might not be there at the time it is needed and thus result in other complications arising. The
necessity of being independent in this particular is of utmost importance. Other toilet aids
which may have to be provided are receptacles for use in bed, commodes, or an Elsan. Toilet
tongs for holding toilet paper to aid in cleaning the perineum is one of the most useful and
personal of aids.
Washing
The technique of washing, comprising soaping, rinsing and drying, applied to the head
face, hands and arms, trunk legs and feet, has to be re-learnt according to the disability
suffered. Special bath rails and various types of bathseats, help on getting into and out of a
bath. A slatted seat with a shoulder-level shower spray may be the solution for the all-over
wash for certain people. A bath into which one can walk, and sit and close the door after
entering, is the greatest invention in this sphere of activity. Those with only one useable
hand may dry their back with a roller towel, the roller being hung on a hook on the door by
means of a strong elastic cord. The person stands or sits back to door and with the good hand
pulls down the towel across his back, the elastic pulling it up again.
Long handled tooth brushes, combs, razors, lipstick holders, etc., help those with
limited arm movements to carry out their washing routine.
Conclusion
Disability is more a matter of degree than of type and the degree of disability is not
only influenced by the physical limitations but also by the mental attitude towards it, the
mental attitude of the community in which the handicapped person lives, as well as by his
own attitude. Someone with a disability is a person just as someone without a disability is
a person. The disability will naturally influence the personality of each member of the family
just as education, age, nationality and environment influence it.
B.Warshaw
Chief Welfare Officer
OFFICES, SHOPS AND RAILWAY PREMISES ACT, 1963
A Charter for the Health, Welfare and Safety of Office Workers
"Such vapid and flat daylight as filtered through the ground glass windows
and skylights, leaving a black sediment upon the panes, showed the book and
papers, and the figures bending over them, enveloped in a studious gloom, and
as much abstracted in appearance from the world without as if they were
assembled at the bottom of the sea, while a mouldy little strong room in the
obscure perspective, where a shady lamp was always burning, might have
represented the cavern of some ocean monster looking on with a red eye at
those mysteries of the deep".
— Charles Dickens, 1843
When Charles Dickens wrote that penetrating description of the cheerless atmosphere
of a nineteenth-century business house one hundred and twenty five years ago, he was in fact
drawing attention to the need for legislation to improve and control the working environment
of those employed in offices and other non-manual employment. The extension of the framework
of welfare legislation which had long been enjoyed by factory workers, to include hitherto
unprotected office workers, and certain other classes of employment, was not achieved unti
1964 when the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Act became operative.
The Ministry of Employment and Productivity requires the Council to submit an annual
report on the operation and enforcement of the Act. The report which follows was submitted
for the period 1st January - 31st December, 1968.
Four years experience of administering the Act has vindicated its declared objective
which was "to improve standards of welfare and safety of employees in office, shop and
raiIway premises".
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