Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Medical charity : its abuses and how to remedy them. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![ousted out of the consultiug room by well-to-do persons,' and that he knew ' as a fact that persons in the possession of incomes of 1000^. a-year, come as out-patients to receive advice, and that the wives and daughters of men almost as wealthy actually bor- row their servants' clothes, in order to apply as out-door patients/ These must, we presume, be very exceptional cases ; but those we are now about to mention are almost as remarkable. A correspondent of the Medical Times and Gazette of May lOth, 1873, affirms that the seven following instances of persons who are able to pay for medical attendance, but who have applied for and received out-door gratuitous medical relief, are cases which have occurred in his own practice :— (1.) The wife of a gentleman who resides in one of the best houses in a suburb, and has a private income of 8001. a-year; (2.) the wife of a gentleman who, besides other means of living, has a salary of 400Z. a-year ; (3.) the daughter of a musical instrument maker, who has two establishments and employs a number of hands ; (4.) the wife of a grocer in business; (5.) a lady living on her house- hold property ; (6.) a publican doing one of the largest trades, if not the largest trade, in his neighbourhood; (7.) a tradesman just now recovering from an illness, during which he stated that in the event of his death he had his family comfortably provided for. The chairman of the conference just referred to, W. H. Smith, Esq., M.P., mentioned that some years ago he had taken the trouble to investigate the position of the persons registered as out- patients in one large hospital, and found that 20 per cent, of them 'had given false addresses, so that it was impossible to trace them.' In Manchester, Mr. O'Hanlon finds, he says, that out of 6359 patients admitted in 1871, at the Eye Hospital, 4400 to 4500 were agents, colliers, factory operatives, joiners, moulders, mechanics, &c., and probably, therefore, in receipt of high wages. Dr. Thorburn, of the Southern Hospital [Manchester], a gentle- man who has had considerable experience in the management of several of the Manchester hospitals, states, that out of every loo patients 10 are paupers, and therefore inadmissible by the rules of all the hospitals, 20 are ' unable to pay,' 50 are ' able to pay by a little effort,' and 20 are ' decidedly able to pay.' Thus, according to Dr. Thorburn, only one-fifth of these applicants were fit objects for gratuitous medical relief Mr. O'Hanlon under- took a careful investigation of the position of the patients who applied for medical aid at three of the medical charities at Man- chester, and he supplies the following very valuable statement of facts which he elicited. He says :— The questions asked were these :—the name of the applicant, address, occupation, wages, number of children, and the amount B 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22650489_0031.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
