EXPLOITATION OF OLD PEOPLE

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5305, 18 January 1947, Page 6

EXPLOITATION OF OLD PEOPLE

(I'ress Assn-

ENGLISH CONDITIONS SHOCKING CASES ARE , QUOTED IN REPORT

-Rec. 9.30 p.m.)

LONDON, Jan. 17. A disturbing counterpart to" the Curtis report upon the neglect of orphan children is published by the -Nuffield Foundation and is attracting fully as much interest. It deals with the care of the aged poor who are forced either to enter public institutions or to go into privately-owned homes. This survey reveals deplorable conditions of exploitation and indifference in the treatment of aged who are unable to rely upon the protection Or interest of relatives. Not all of the public institutions or voluntary homes inspected 'by members of the Nuffield eommittee are criticised. A considerable number are stated to be entirely satisfactory and many of them have been modernised. B«t in others what the report describes as "shocking cases of cruel exploi'. ation" are cited. In one home, a woman who previously had her licence for a nursing home cancelled because a patient was found to be vermlno'us, had 30 old people as lodgers, each of them paying her three guineas a week. Bipsomaniac Proprietress The house was dirty and smelly, much of the furniture was ibroken, and seven of the inmates had to be removed owing to neglect. •Most of the old people living in this house appeared frightened of the proprietress and so terrified at being sent to a public. institution, that they wcuJd not complain. In another house where six oi' eight old women were accommodated, inmates were found naked in bed and often crying. The proprietress was recently certified as a dipsomaniac. In yet another "home" the proprietress charged five guineas a week for crowded, dirty and unsuitable accommodation. One senile inmate was found Svith gangrenous hands and feet. The eommittee found that the biggest burden of the aged was loneliiness and apathy. In one public institution which had only one chair for each inmate, there was nothing whatever for the residents to do. As a result they simply sat against the walls waiting for the next nieal.- All were in a state of acute depression. In another such institution old people were lodged with ment'ally deficient children. In another the rules were so harsh that old men and women were forbidden to go in the garden together. In a nitmber more there were unnecessary restrictive regulations about receiving visitors.

In many cases these people were the victims of calculated exploitation. Special Accommodation for Aged The survey covers men over the age of 65 and women over 60, the earliest age at which State pensions are 1 paid. It is estimated that if .the present population trends continue in Britain in 40 years' tirne the number of people above these ages will be equal to the number of young people and may by then have reached the stage at which the care and maintenance of so large a number "may become so great as to result in a lowering of the national standai'ds of living." In dealing with the question of poverty, the report states that as a result of the introductions of the Old Age and Widows' Pensions Act, 1940, which established supplementary pensions for the aged, there is no such acute poverty as previously existed among elderly people, although there is still a measure of austerity. It is with the conditions under which many of these old people are compelled to live, not with their subsistence level, that the report finds fault. As imniediate remedies, the report recommends that all voluntary homes for old people 'should be compulsorily registered and inspected; that alms houses be repaired and modem- « ised; that in all housing projects a ! certain proportion of accommodation should be set aside for the aged; that small communal homes should be set up by Jhe State, and that suitable welfare services should be established to organise amenities for elderly people.