NEAFC 32nd Annual Conference.pdf - New England Association of ...

NEw E~XIGLAI’CD .AssocI~TIOlXI OF FIRE CHIEFS
You Fire Chie.fs have no problem more difficult than the protection, of the
40,000 to 50,000 people_ who are passing their last, slow days. in the multitudinous
nursing, convalescent, and boarding homes for the aged, and in the city
and town infirmaries of New England. In the same buildings, lookirig after
these patients,, there must be at least 7,500 more staff employees, who also
look to you for protection.
With reference to the institutions for the aged, just exactly how many
of these places there are, and how many folks are in them, nobody quite knows.
The figure I have just used of 40,000 to 50,000 is just a guess. In Massachusetts
alone, at the last count, there were 735 licensed convalescent homes, and
856 boarding homes, with an approximate total of 22,320 patients. One such
boarding home houses 276 patients, asmany as the-entire population of some
of our smaller New England towns. For the whole o£ New England, you can
double these Massachusetts figures, as I did in my estimate of 40,000 to 50,000.
But, aside from the licensed institutions, there are unlicensed bootleg
homes, we hear, and beyond all these, there must be hundreds., probably thousands
of smaller homes with only two to four patients, apiece, that are outside
the purview of our licensing system altogether. So that you can add another
20,000 to the 50,000 I mentioned before, if you want to include them all.
However, the number of such institutions, and of their patients, grows
steadily, month by month.
Of the people who run these boarding and nursing homes, a subs[tantial
proportion are of the highest type, such as doctors, experienced nurses., Competent
middle-aged women with capital. ’Under such a management, the patients
get adequate, sympathetic, loving care.
Another type of management is in the business, purely for profit, but
nevertheless may run high-grade institutions.
A few of the owners, I am sorry to say, are completely unfit by character
and disposition to care for elderly people, or anybody else, and their establishments
are unfit, also.
The respectable houses and the public officials concerned, want to see to
it that these are cleaned up, or cleaned out. Not only the legislative commission
on which I am now serving, and on which Chief Kimball has been serving,
but you Fire Chiefs, are among the public officials for whom this. cleanup is
a necessary duty.
Now, let us look at the. patients. Not all of these folks are old, but
most of them are, for their average age is 71. Some of them are spry, and in
good health, and could get out of a burning building on their own. Many are
senile; many are ill. Large numbers of them are bed-ridden and helpless. They
cannot move, in case of fire; they must be moved. And, to quote Roy Beaudry,
head o£ the Inspection Division of our Massachusetts Department of Public
Safety, most of these patients "could not negotiate stairways or fire escapes,
especially in the midst, of smoke, gas or flames."
As to who pays for them, there is a certain proportion of these people
who are in these places, voluntarily. In some instances, they or their families
pay their way. Some have relatives who are thoughtful of them. Often, their
relatives are merely anxious to get the folks out of the way.
The bulk of them are placed in homes by public officials, and the general
public pays for their keep. Most of these public officials are:.~umane,-if some-
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