Hospitals and the state : with an account of the nursing at London hospitals, and statistical tables showing the actual and comparative cost of management and maintenance, and of work done by the principal hospitals, convalescent institutions, and dispensaries throughout Great Britain and Ireland / by Henry C. Burdett.

  • Burdett, Henry C., Sir, 1847-1920
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hospitals and the state : with an account of the nursing at London hospitals, and statistical tables showing the actual and comparative cost of management and maintenance, and of work done by the principal hospitals, convalescent institutions, and dispensaries throughout Great Britain and Ireland / by Henry C. Burdett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    have been shown by modern research to be traceable almost always to want of common sanitary supervision; and, in a general way, it may be fairly said that the new St. Thomas’s has been among the least successfully managed hospitals in London. Its funds have been squandered foolishly; its opportunities for doing good have been curtailed; and the advancement of science and the education of students, in so far as they have been accomplished, have been accomplished in the face of artificial difficulties and obstacles, created by those whose first business it should have been to remove them. Of late years the antagonism between the treasurer and the medical staff appears to have reached such a point that the customary annual dinner of the governors had to be abandoned, and at least one very distinguished teacher transferred his services to another hospital, in order to avoid a conflict which would otherwise have been forced upon him.’* The notorious facts in connection with Guy’s Hospital have been specially brought to the notice of the Home Secretary by a deputation on a recent occasion, and it is not necessary to allude to them further here, except to say that they endorse in a very remarkable manner, the condemnation of the present system of managing these great hospitals, which the writer in the Times has so forcibly delivered. At St. Bartholomew’s Hospital matters have been managed in quietude, if not with efficiency. The recent exercise of the arbitrary powers conferred upon the treasurer of this hospital, who has decided to take away all the beds so long placed at the disposal of the assistant physicians and surgeons, thus depriving these gentlemen of the means necessary to enable them to increase their skill and to adequately teach the students, is not the least striking example of a vicious system which ought to be speedily abolished. A public audit is absolutely necessary to check extravagance and to protect the public, which has at present but little or no voice in restraining reckless mismaDagement. The donors of charitable funds, and the recipients of the benefits arising therefrom, have at present but little guarantee that strict economy is practised or the greatest possible good achieved. An authoritative supervision would prevent foolish squandering, as well as the occupation of unhealthy and unsuitable buildings as hospitals, and it would also promote good feeling between the hospital authorities and the medical staff. The recent embroglio at Guy’s Hospital endorses in a marked manner the condemnation of the present system of managing some hospitals, especially those largely endowed. V. The absence of organisation and combination amongst the medical institutions throughout the country materially lessens their usefulness. On this proposition little need be said. It is strongly enforced by the enormous and needless difference in the cost of management and maintenance brought out by the Tables and already referred to. The absence of this combination or co-operation leads to lamentable extravagance, an enormous waste of money, owing to the repetition of an expenditure in the management of very many charities, the objects of which could be far better carried out under one roof. Hospital finance, accounts, supply, the general question of the uses and abuses of hospitals, the relations of dispensaries, and especially of provident dispensaries, to hospitals, the reproduction of exploded abuses, and the adequate trial of new systems can alone be rightly judged, decided upon, or prevented by means of this co-operation, and the sooner it is brought about, the better will it be for the welfare of all classes of the community. -* Leading Article in the Times, Nov. 13, 1877.