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29
HOME HELPS' SERVICE.
Under the Council's scheme Home Helps are provided for
(a) maternity and child welfare cases—that is, cases in
which domestic service is required during the lying-in
period of a mother, or for families containing children
under five years of age;
(b) other cases in which domestic service is required by
reason of sickness or infirmity.
Very full use was made throughout the year of the services of
the Home Helps; indeed, despite the steady enrolment of additional
workers, the need for assistance has often exceeded the supply.
Such a state of affairs was foreshadowed in Ministry of Health
Circular 179/44 and an effort is made to provide help in the cases
where it is most urgently required, such as confinement cases, but
the need to withdraw the services of a Home Help from a case because
she is more urgently needed elsewhere is not always readily understood
either by the family concerned or by medical practitioners and
others to whom the family complain of the deprivation.
At the commencement of the year 45 Home Helps were employed
and by 31st December this number had been increased to 130.
The cases assisted generally fall into the following categories :—
(a) Maternity cases;
(b) Aged and infirm persons, usually living alone;
(c) Chronic ailment cases—arthritis, heart disease, etc.;
('d) Cases of temporary illness, such as the illness of a
housewife;
(e) Blind persons—26 blind persons were receiving assistance
at the end of the year.
Charges for assistance under the scheme are made in accordance
with the income scale and method of assessment recommended by the
Metropolitan Boroughs' Standing Joint Committee.