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144
During the year in question 857 patients attended the dispensary.
The St. Marylebone Dispensary for Consumptives has just
been opened. The cost incurred in establishing it, I am informed by
Dr. Sutherland, its Medical Officer, was about the same as that of
the Paddington Dispensary, viz., about £250, and the initial yearly
cost of maintenance £750. The staff required at first for a tuberculosis
dispensary should consist of one Medical Officer, specially
trained for the work, a nurse, and a caretaker resident on the
premises.
These dispensaries are established on the principle that only
cases of consumption are treated which are not under medical treatment
and supervision, unless the case is recommended by a special
written request from the patient's medical attendant. This rule
avoids all conflict with local medical practitioners.
Hitherto, these dispensaries have been established and maintained
by voluntary subscriptions; but it is competent for a local
authority to provide and maintain such an institution out of the
rates under Section 75 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891,
for persons other than " poor persons," as follows:—
75.—(1) Any sanitary authority may provide for the use of
the inhabitants of their district, hospitals, temporary or permanent,
and for that purpose may (a) Themselves build such hospitals, or
(b) Contract for the use of any hospital or part of a hospital, or
(c) Enter into any agreement with any person having the management
of any hospital for the reception of the sick inhabitants of
their district, on payment of such annual or other sum as may be
agreed upon.
The Necessity for Tuberculosis Dispensaries.
The importance of a Tuberculosis Dispensary in any scheme for
the prevention of the spread of tuberculosis has been proved in this
country, in America, and on the Continent. In a recent memorandum
by the Medical Officer of the Local Government Board on the
administrative measure against tuberculosis, the following remarks
occur:-