View report page

27
Council, in compliance with requirements of the Ministry of Health, made direct
arrangements with voluntary institutions for these cases.
On 1st May, 1921, by Act of Parliament of that year, sanatorium benefit under
the National Health Insurance Acts ceased, and the responsibility for the provision
of treatment for tuberculosis of ex-service patients and insured adults
became the additional responsibility of the Council. The number of applications
received for residential treatment during the year 1921 was 5,266 (4,234 adults and
1,032 children) and the number of patients under treatment in residential institutions
on 31st December, 1921, was 2,051 (1,382 adults and 669 children).
The operation of the Local Government Act, 1929, still further extended the
obligations of the Council for providing residential accommodation for the treatment
of tuberculosis, and hospitals and sanatoria provided both by former boards of guardians
and the late Metropolitan Asylums Board were transferred to the Council.
For a time admissions to the former were continued under the poor law, but later
the Council "appropriated" the hospitals in accordance with the provisions of the
Local Government Act, 1929, and patients were removed from the purview of the
poor law. During the year 1932, the distinction was continued by classifying
patients either as "tuberculosis scheme" or "municipal" patients, the latter term
including patients in general hospitals and certain patients sent to voluntary
sanatoria.
Broadly speaking, patients who are likely to improve materially from residential
treatment and a proportion of more advanced cases with reasonable prospect
of restoration to some degree of working capacity are dealt with under the
tuberculosis scheme, and the remaining patients, those acutely ill and
those with chronic disease, are treated as "municipal" cases. Of the latter,
patients confined to bed or mainly bedridden are accommodated in general
hospitals, and those able to be up for some eight hours a day without rise of
temperature are sent to residential institutions in the country provided with grounds
and facilities for occupation.
Patients are distributed among suitable institutions having regard to their
needs. Cases in institutions both under the Council's tuberculosis scheme and in
the Council's general hospitals are reviewed from time to time and interchanges are
effected so that the accommodation at the disposal of the Council is used to the
best advantage.