The labour movement and the hospital crisis
1922 1922 1920s 21 pages When the local health authorities have established the nucleus of a public hospital service by taking over and equipping the Poor Law infirmaries as General Hospitals for the use of all citizens, they will be in a position to negotiate with the Voluntary Hospitats. The latte...
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| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
| Language: | English English |
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London ; published by the Trades Union Congress and the Labour Party
[1922]
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/ACBBDAAB-35CA-4F3C-8A34-0307571F7418 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/255AD438-3232-4D38-B856-CB0E27C7C61C |
| Summary: | 1922
1922
1920s
21 pages
When the local health authorities have established the nucleus of a public hospital service by taking over and equipping the Poor Law infirmaries as General Hospitals for the use of all citizens, they will be in a position to negotiate with the Voluntary Hospitats. The latter should be given the option of (1) being taken over root and branch by the health authority, or (2) of remaining on an entirely voluntary basis, or (3) receiving subsidies from public funds, conditional on their being maintained at a high standard of efficiency and on the public authority being represented on the governing body in numbers proportionate to the size of the subsidy. Many hospitals exhausted by financial difficulties would most likely be only too pleased to give up the struggle and find rest under the public authority. Many others will probably be forced into accepting subsidies by their financial straits. Those remaining on an entirety voluntary basis will probably be but few. Whatever happens, however, it will be essential that the public and the Voluntary and semi-Voluntary Hospitals should together establish a scheme of mutual aid in carrying out the institutional work of the country. Just as the Voluntary Hospitals are beginning to co-operate with the Poor Law infirmaries, so must they in the future co-operate with the municipal hospitals, if they have a care for the welfare of the community. This should not exclude a friendly rivalry as to which shall be most efficiency equipped and skilfully administered. One danger must be carefully avoided. If the Voluntary Hospitals continue the system of patients' payments, and the public hospitals are free and open to all, which it is essential they should be, there will be a tendency for the former to drift into pay-hospitals for the middle classes and the latter to be used by the necessitous poor only. There will then arise a service for the rich and a service for the poor, which is bad from every point of view, and will entail the risk that in the long run the public hospitals may gather about them all the evils and odium of the present Poor Law institutions. This danger can be entirely avoided by keeping the standard of work in the new public hospitals up to the level of that of the best Voluntary Hospitals, for it is obvious that if the comfort and treatment are equal no one will be desirous of incurring the extra expense of entering a paying hospital when they can for nothing enter a similar institution, in the management of which they have a voice through their elected representatives. In this way the public hospitals will probably become more popular and more in demand by members of all classes than the Voluntary Hospitals. Moreover, with the growth of a proper civic spirit the public will be less willing to accept any portion of their treatment as an act of charity from the benevolent when they can provide it for themselves through the rates. With the infirmaries transformed into up-to-date General Hospitals, working in close co-operation with existing Voluntary Hospitals, some of the present shortage of hospital requirements will be made good ; but even so there must still be a considerable deficiency of accommodation and service; there will still be over-crowded out-patient departments and long waiting lists for admission to the wards, and but little will have been done to correct the present anomalies of the faulty distribution of hospital accommodation. With an efficient nucleus firmly established, these deficiencies can be made good gradually; new construction can be undertaken as opportunity occurs at suitable centres, such as cottage hospitats in small towns and additional 18
126/TG/RES/X/1036A/6 |
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |