SOUND ADVICE GIVEN ON CARE OF AGEING

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 74, 28 July 1948, Page 6

SOUND ADVICE GIVEN ON CARE OF AGEING

PARENTS-IN-LAW Advice on care of the aged was given by Lord Amulree, addressing the Women Public Health Officers’ Association in London. He urged that they should not mollycoddle old people and try to keep them in cotton wool. Why should an old lady of 90 not go to the pictures if she wished? There was a tendency to prevent old people from going out for a walk or looldng at the shops for fear they should have a heart attack while they were out. What if they did have a heart attack? It was far better that they died a little earlier enjoying themselves than that they lived on for years as unhappy prisoners. The new “plus-Grannie fiats”' ordinary modern flats for modern families with a large one-roomed annexe where grandmothers could live by themselves but" within call of their relatives, were proving a success. For many old people the small home or hostel was the best arrangement. Local authorities had in theirareas large Victorian houses which might be suitable for conversion into old people’s homes. The homes should not have more than 40 beds. As far as possible, the old people should be given separate rooms and be free to come and go as they wished. In mixed homes there should be two lounges, one for men and women, and one. for men only. The British Medical Association had recommended that hospitals should have wards for the treatment of old people, in winch persons suffering from longrterm illnesses would receive as good treatment as young people with acute short-term illnesses.