This paper describes some areas of difficulty which may occur in providing high quality long-stay care to everybody who needs it. Whether this is discrimination or not depends how broad a definition is given to this term.

Provision of resources

In order to provide high quality long-term care the first need is to have the proper facilities. This is not a matter which is under the control of doctors and is very much dependent on financial resources being made available by health authorities and boards and ultimately by the Government. A striking feature of health care is that very expensive high technology equipment is often readily available, and public appeals are sometimes used to provide this, but the technology of long-term care of elderly people, namely well designed and well staffed wards, is much less easy to obtain and does not excite the generosity of the public. When the distribution of wards within hospitals is decided, it is often the oldest and least attractive parts of the hospital that are allocated to those who are going to be in hospital longest, indeed, for whom hospital is going to be their home. The medical profession itself, and particularly that part of it which works in hospital, has a major responsibility for these attitudes.