Welfare of the Old
"There is an urgent need for more specialised geriatric hospital departments," wrote, Mr. Angus Maude in an article on the care of the old in the Spectator last week, and he added that there are also not nearly enough homes of the right type for old people. A small but possibly significant development in the care of the old was taken a few weeks ago by University College Hospital with the assistance of King Edward's Fund for London Hospitals. It opened a house at Highgate for thirty-two elderly patients—men and women who are infirm but not bed-ridden. They are under the medical care of Lord Amulree, who is consultant physician in charge of the geriatric unit of the hospital, and, himself a member of the National Corporation for the Care of Old People sponsored by the Nuffield Foundation, has constantly drawn attention to the plight of the aged. Other homes of this type, though all too few, already exist; but this is the first to be established by a teaching hospital. Some of the residents will be permanent; others will be able to return to their families. The aim is to provide care but yet encourage activity. The beds are lower than hospital beds so that the patients can themselves get in and out, and a physiotherapist from the hospital gises remedial exercises. Such homes attached to hospitals would obviate "hospitalisation," and that institutional boredom that many old people still have to suffer. To maintain a home atmosphere such refuges must be small; but it is to be hoped that there will soon be many more of them.
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