Our medical charities : an address delivered at the annual meeting of the Birmingham and Midland Counties Branch of the British Medical Association, June 26th, 1877 / by Sampson Gamgee.

  • Gamgee, Sampson, 1828-1886.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Our medical charities : an address delivered at the annual meeting of the Birmingham and Midland Counties Branch of the British Medical Association, June 26th, 1877 / by Sampson Gamgee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    subscribers; and that the remedy for the evil is furnished by the free admission of patients. So confident are the advocates of this system of its intrinsic merits, that they are predicting its speedy adoption by the oldest, the largest, and the wealthiest of our local hospitals, which is administered on the principle of giving certain powers of recommendation of patients to governors and subscribers, and of free admission of all urgent and deserving cases. The illusion was dispelled at the recent annual meeting of the General Hospital, which was presided over by Mr. Jaffray, a gentleman personally known to many of you, by repute to all, as occupying a leading position in the very front rank of local public men and commercial authorities. He spoke in no doubtful terms : “ After very carefully thinking “ out the whole question, after mature experience of the operation “ of the Hospital, and after considering its constitution, con- “ stituency, and all the circumstances attending it, he believed no “ system was more adapted to carry out the advantages it was “ designed to afford, than that system of freedom combined with “ ticket privileges. He therefore recommended to the next Com- “ mittee the propriety of leaving things as they were.”* Another of our Medical Charities, which enjoys a wide reputa¬ tion, alike for the practical wisdom and proved success of its business administration, and for the ability and repute of its surgical staff, is the Eye Hospital in Temple Row. There the subscribers are entitled to notes of recommendation, and free cases are admitted according to their urgency in the opinion of the surgeons, on a scale regulated by the financial resources of the charity. Others of our medical charities are conducted on the same principles ; while the Queen’s, the Women’s, and the Children’s are free, with the material qualification that the patients have to pay a fee on admission. This fee is called a registration fee, and is designed to operate as a check on the rapid increase of patients, and as a subsidy to the funds. If the Free System, with the registration fee, really possess the advantages which its advocates claim for it, it should be generally adopted; and the sooner the better. If on the other hand its benefits be illusory or theoretical, and counterbalanced by practical disadvantages, the truth deserves to be known and to be acted upon. It was in 1861 that the Birmingham and Midland Hospital for * Mr. Jaffray’s Speech at the Annual Meeting- of Governors of the General Hospital, reported in the Birmingham Daily Post, Feb. 2, 1877,