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39
National Insurance Act, 1911.
Administration of Sanatorium Benefit.
Insured persons became entitled to the Sanatorium
benefit provided by the National Insurance Act on July
15th, 1912, and in September a temporary local Sub-Committee
was formed for each metropolitan borough, to
administer the provision of Sanatorium benefit to insured
persons within the borough, and the Medical Officer of
Health was appointed to serve on the Committee with the
permission of the Borough Council. So far as Fulham
was concerned, the appointment of the Sub-Committee
was a farce, as there was practically nothing for them to
administer and they might well have been spared the
trouble of meeting. A scale of fees to be paid to medical
practitioners for the domiciliary treatment of insured
persons suffering from tuberculosis was agreed upon, but
only four patients were referred to the Sub-Committee,
and of these one had been dead 17 days and another had
been admitted into the Poor Law Infirmary. Eight
insured persons were recommended by the medical adviser
of the Insurance Committee for treatment at the Fulham
Dispensary and the Sub-Committee arranged as to the
payments to be made to the Dispensary in respect of
these patients, but the Insurance Committee have recently
informed the Committee of the Dispensary that they
have no funds to enable them to pay for the treatment
of insured persons.
As there were grave complaints of the delay of the
Insurance Committee in dealing with applications for
Sanatorium benefit, of which the two cases mentioned
above are illustrations, the Fulham Sub-Committee
passed the following resolution:—
"That having regard to the long delay, which is
most detrimental to the patient, entailed by the method
adopted by the Insurance Committee of the County
of London of dealing with applications for a Sanatorium
benefit, the provisional Sub-Committee of