Nurses in the Home SIR, —I am in full agreement with
Mr. R. L. Kitchin that " poorer patients (most markedly in villages) were much better cared for thirty years ago." In the days of voluntary district nursing associations in our village the district nurse living in the village and, daily seen in and out of the cottages, was a known and well-loved figure. No doctor's chit was necessary to call her to a case. The well-organised district nursing committee with its superintendents was kept well- informed of all her cases. Subscribers and others were served by her when her aid was sought.
She saw daily and often twice a day to the ailing old folk—getting them up and seeing them comfortably back in bed. The finances of her district were organised by the members of the committee who collected the subscriptions and sought more subscribers—who knew all inhabitants of the area. No one would be ill or in want of assistance for a day without Nurse being sent for. It is a thousand pities that this has all been swept away and replaced by this soulless 'system— so-called Welfare State. I have known cases where the district nurse, sent to a case by the doctor, has washed the patient once and never
gone again, and the patient died soon after. The nurse is not to blame but the system. A district nurse has far too large an area to cover, and although given a car (and she needs one) instead of a bicycle she cannot cover her duties. She is now too busy helping young into the world and has no time to help the old folks to leave it. And how old folks dread being sent to die away from home !—Yours
The Doll's House, Plaistow, W. Sussex.
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