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42
At the close of the year no such arrangement had been arrived at, and matters
therefore were not very much further forward than at the beginning of the year.
The whole trouble seemed to be the amount to be paid to the Dispensary by the
Insurance Committee, and whether or not the payment should be made direct by
them or through the Council.
If the amount could have been decided upon, and it may be noted here that this
was no concern of theirs, the Council would probably have been prepared to accept
either arrangement. As it apparently was a difficult sum to settle, the Council could
do nothing but wait. At the end of the year it seemed likely that there would be
some considerable delay.
Fortunately the delay means very little more than that the organisation is not
quite formally completed.
All the elements which will eventually make up the scheme are working
together, doing everything possible to deal with the cases and tuberculosis prevention
generally.
The St. Marylebone Dispensary for the Prevention of Consumption.—This
institution particularly, although it is the one with regard to which difficulties are
experienced by the Insurance Committee, continued its work actively throughout the
year. What that work was is shown in the following note, which has been very
kindly provided by Dr. Saner, the Acting Medical Officer:—
During the year 1914, 317 patients were examined at the Dispensary. Of
these, 157 were found to be definitely tuberculous and 43 were suspected cases.
Children under 15 numbered 150, and of these 48 were found to be tuberculous,
22 were suspected cases, and 70 were non-tuberculous. The Medical Officer paid
1,079 visits to patients in their own homes, and the Dispensary Sister paid 1,962
domiciliary visits. The number of individual attendances of patients at the
Dispensary was 6,057.
The number of persons insured under the National Insurance Act coming under
treatment at the Dispensary for the first time was 62, but the number of those
actually under treatment, including insured persons continuing their attendance from
previous years, was 150.
In all, 365 patients were actually receiving treatment at the Dispensary in 1914,
and of these 150 were insured persons and 215 were not insured. The total
attendance of same, including home visits by the Medical Officer, were as follows:—
Insured persons 1,893
Non-insured 4,164
Making a total of 6,057
With regard to the sending of insured patients to the State Sanatoria, 17 patients
were sent from this Dispensary during the year 1914.