The Case for a Revision of the Rate of Contributions (memorandum)
1939-07 1939 1930s 8 pages - 3 - 5. Cash Value of Merseyside Voluntary Services (Cont/d) The Municipal Hospitals would take over the work and, therefore, the expenditure of the Voluntary Hospitals, but the whole of the above income would vanish and would have to be found by the ratepayer. In additi...
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| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
| Language: | English English |
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July 1939
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/06B2A712-A5CA-4644-925D-1C53AAE7370A http://hdl.handle.net/10796/33E2D022-4F11-4F34-8FEB-38E45C8659EA |
| Summary: | 1939-07
1939
1930s
8 pages
- 3 - 5. Cash Value of Merseyside Voluntary Services (Cont/d) The Municipal Hospitals would take over the work and, therefore, the expenditure of the Voluntary Hospitals, but the whole of the above income would vanish and would have to be found by the ratepayer. In addition, over one million pounds of invested capital would have to be dissipated and handed back to the descendants of people long since dead, which is simply throwing good money away. Legacies and donations would cease, and again the ratepayer would have to make good the loss, no less than £97,700 per annum. Honorary Medical Services are, of course, a peculiarity of the Voluntary system. Since the wage-earner pays rates like everyone else, and pays again on top of that when he goes into a Municipal Hospital, he at least would be a loser by the exchange. Under the present system, in return for a small weekly contribution he pays nothing whatever when he goes into Hospital. 6. Patients from Distant Areas. There has been some criticism of the fact that of the total IN-Patients in the Associated Hospitals 13% come from beyond a radius of ten miles from Liverpool Town Hall. But where else can they go? Liverpool is a medical metropolis and we ought to be proud of it. All we can claim is that they must pay as willingly and as much towards their treatment as our own Merseyside patients The Merseyside Hospitals Council has actually asked them to pay more than this, namely 7/- per day. s See end of document. 7. Rising Cost of Hospital Treatment. Many items of Hospital expenditure have increased in the ten years since the Merseyside Hospitals Council was founded. Merseyside Voluntary Hospitals have made a very praiseworthy effort to offset that by more economical management, with the result that costs per head in 1936, although rising, were still hardly higher than in 1927 on the average. As against the record, it should be noted that, in Liverpool, Municipal Hospital costs have risen in the last six years as follows :— Walton Hospital 35% Smithdown Road Hospital 58% Mill Road Infirmary 17% There is a limit to economies which can be effected by the Voluntary Hospitals and it has been reached. During 1937, both coal and milk have been raised in price by Government action and there is a strong movement, with full public support, for shorter nursing hours. This means more nurses. It follows, therefore, that the annual deficit of the Hospitals for 1936 (See paragraph 4.) is going to be greater still in 1937 and 1938, if additional income is not raised. Provisional 1937 figures will be available at the Meeting.
292/842/2/208-209 |
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |