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62
in money by the enlightened action of the Guardians, for as the
result of an enquiry made last year, in view of the Conference of
Sanitary Authorities, already referred to, I ascertained that only
£58 10s. 1d. had been received by some twenty Boards of
Guardians in respect of 79 out of 3,100 patients removed by
them to hospitals in a litttle less than one year. Objection had
been raised to the principle of free hospital treatment, on the
grounds that many patients contributed towards their maintenance
a sum considerable in the aggregate, and that patients able to pay
should be made to pay. Even had this been the case—and I have
shown that it is not so—sanitarians who know the terrible consequences
that so often result from the home treatment of infectious
diseases, when the sick cannot be isolated, would have been ready
to justify a sacrifice in money rather than imperil life. It was more
difficult to satisfy the representatives of the ratepayers, those who
hold the strings of the public purse, of the good policy of such a
course, but the facts and figures I submitted to the Conference
brought conviction, and it was resolved unanimously "that payment
for the assistance given in hospitals to persons removed thereto for
isolation by the Sanitary or the Poor Law Authority should
not be enforced," as well as "that the giving of such assistance
should not entail on the recipient the loss of any social or political
status."
But to resume:—If I were asked if anything more could be
done by the Guardians to facilitate the removal of the sick? I
should be almost at a loss to answer in the affirmative, unless I
might be permitted to suggest that when a person applies to a
Relieving Officer for a medical order in a case of infectious disease,
scarlet fever for instance, the order, which is applied for with a
view to the removal of a sick person to hospital, should be granted
without question. Not seldom when a Sanitary Inspector has
succeeded in persuading a mother to let a sick child go to hospital
and she has subsequently learned at the Relief Office that
removal was not obligatory—by being asked whether, or why, she
wished the child to be removed—the discovery has turned the scale;
the mother has gone home without the order, and the case has
not been removed.