Short statement of the proceedings of a drawing-room meeting : held at 4, St. James' Square, by the kind permission of Earl and Countess Cowper, on Thursday, March 27th, 1884, called for the purpose of considering a proposal to found a Convalescent Hospital and Home of Rest for the poor and working classes of London.

Date:
[1884]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Short statement of the proceedings of a drawing-room meeting : held at 4, St. James' Square, by the kind permission of Earl and Countess Cowper, on Thursday, March 27th, 1884, called for the purpose of considering a proposal to found a Convalescent Hospital and Home of Rest for the poor and working classes of London. 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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    Convales- cent accommo- dation. Hospital patients probably requiring Convales- cent Homes. Dispensary cases, Benefit Clubs, &c. There are fourteen Convalescent In.stitutions assisted by the Hospital Sunday Fund as being practically available to London The total number of beds fttrnished by these homes is exactly 1500, and only, therefore, ineets the wants of the hospitals, if the basis of the foregoing calculations be accepted as a right one. It must, however, be remembered that the fourteen homes mentioned are not in any one instance confined to London but are very largely used by patients from all parts of the country, and though it is iinpossible to ascertain the facts in detail, it may be fairly assumed that not much more than half the accommodation is available to London; that is to say 800 or 1000 beds to meet the want of 1500. Again, taking the number of patients as a basis of calcula- tions, we find that in the year, 47,297 persons were received into the forty-nine hospitals as in-patients. Now Guy's Hospital sent 452 out of 5,121 in-patients to Con- valescent Homes, therefore the whole number (47,297) would send in proportion 4,174, whereas the total number of patients received into the fourteen homes referred to amounted to 12,485; assuming therefore Guy's to be a fair average, the patients from London Hospitals represented a third of the total number of persons admitted from the whole country. It will be noticed that out-patients (approximately estimated at 585,619 in the given year) are not included. At least one in twenty would be eligible for Convalescent Homes, so that 29,280 would be added to the number of in- patients given before making a total of 33,454. It may be well here to give the following extract from the report already referred to, drawn up by the Charity Organiza- tion Society.—It is remarkable tliat more than half the patients sent to the convalescent homes by these hospitals are sent by the three to which homes are attached. It may be inferred, and the inference is supported by other evidence, that if more con- valescent accommodation were available for all these hospitals a very much larger number of patients would be sent to the homes. At present cases remain in the hospitals when they would(if therewere opportunity) be sent to Convalescent Homes, where they would recover more quickly, leaving to others the valuable space they occupy in the hospital. Now only the more ttrgent cases obtain admission to the convalescent homes. If the average of eligibility, given for instance by the Steward of Guy's Hospital, of 1,500 out of 5000, be applied, accommodation for 16,161 convalescent cases would be required in one year, for the in-patients alone of the forty-three London hospitals. Before leaving this branch of the subject it should be borne in mind that in the calculations, hospital cases alone have been dealt with, yet it is as necessary to provide for dispensary cases