Report of the sub-committee on Poor Law Dispensaries, in relation to the general question of remedying the abuses of the Out-Patient Department of the public hospitals and dispensaries of the Metropolis / [Spencer Wells and others.

Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the sub-committee on Poor Law Dispensaries, in relation to the general question of remedying the abuses of the Out-Patient Department of the public hospitals and dispensaries of the Metropolis / [Spencer Wells and others. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    able to expect that they should perform their duties in a satis- factory manner, whilst no attempt appears to have been made by the Poor Law Board to enforce proper efficiency, by any systematic inspection of the manner in which the work is done. The whole arrangements appear to have been left to the management of guardians, who have in many cases shown their want of appreciation of the importance of the subject by systematic neglect. The Sub-committee are also of opinion that no reform in the out-patient department of the public hospitals and dispen- saries, worthy of the name, can take place without such an improvement in the administration of Poor Law medical relief as will take away every excuse for the practically unlimited gratuitous out-patient system, which, under the existing arrangements, is necessarily required. They are of opinion that the Act of 1867, for the Establishment of Dispensaries in the Metropolis, is fully calculated to meet all the require- ments of the case. And this opinion is also supported by the medical press, and particularly by the Poor Law Medical Officers themselves, the Association over which Dr. Rogers presides having repeatedly urged their establishment upon the Poor Law Board. It is to be regretted, however, that the Act has been mutilated, partly by the doubts which have been thrown upon its interpretation by the Poor Law Board, partly by subsequent legislation, and most of all by the fact that guardians, who cannot be supposed to have much knowledge of the subject, have been left entirely without instructions as to the best way in which its provisions may be duly carried out. (1st.) With respect to the intention of the Legislature we would observe that, wisely or unwisely, it was clearly under- stood that in passing the Dispensary Act, Parliament in- tended to introduce the Irish system. Promises were indeed made that such regulations should be issued by the Poor Law Board as should afford security against the abuses which prevailed in Ireland; but it cannot be doubted that it was intended to provide free medicine to all those poor persons who had not the means of providing it from their own re- sources, whether they were in the receipt of other kinds of relief or not. Nor can it be denied that such persons have, even under the English Poor Law, a legal claim to such assistance. The guardians are bound to relieve all who are destitute ” of any one of the first necessaries of life, and it cannot be doubted that in many cases prompt and efficient medi- cal attendance is more necessary even than bread itself. This indeed is the common practice of the law in Ireland, where