Administrative and Statistical Report Volume 25-27 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914 Excerpt: ...of a convalescent home. Owing to the demand for beds, patients are kept, as a rule, only during the acute stages. When we realize that the majority of our free patients are drawn from a class of people living either in extreme poverty or from those that are struggling to obtain the bare necessities, it is obvious that their homes are unsuited to the convalescent period, which is often long drawn out. The treatment in the hospital becomes ineffectual. The mere connection with a relief society does not solve the problem. The convalescent home might adopt a scheme by which the patients could be taught self-help. A few hours' work daily in the sewing-room, kitchen, grounds, or other occupations could be introduced, and might teach industrial habits and reduce the hospital expense. The enforced idleness of a long convalescence is often conducive to a spirit of dependence. A few cases might be cited to show the usefulness of the Social Service Department: 1. A., A young girl of seventeen, a patient on Ward G, had been operated on for an acute attack of appendicitis. Family consisted of father, mother and five children, of which A. was the oldest. The family existed on the combined earnings of A. and her brother, aged sixteen. Both were employed in a factory, earning from $6.00 to $7.00 weekly. Their father was invalided by mental trouble, from which he had been suffering for several years. The mother was thin, worried, and irritable, probably made so by her husband's illness, which she did not understand, and by the constant struggle for a bare living. Her husband had been treated in the State Sanatorium, but through the family's ignorance of the necessity of treatment. he had been removed against the doctor's advice, and was now at home, handicapping ...