Remarks read before a sub-committee appointed to consider the question of provident dispensaries / by William Ogle.
- Ogle, William, 1824-1905.
- Date:
- 1857
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Remarks read before a sub-committee appointed to consider the question of provident dispensaries / by William Ogle. 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.
10/28 page 10
![We judge of the ability of the applicant by the particulars recorded on Schedule B. When these considerations are not taken into account, the payment for a single man is the same, whether he earn 12, 20, or 30 shillings per week; and this sum is doubled in the case of man and wife; and if they bring two or more children, it becomes threefold. [See Schedule (7.] Our scale, however, while it gradually increases accord- ing to the total earnings of the family, admits the man and wife at one-and-a-half; and the man, wife, and children for double the payment for the man alone. A whole family whose earnings do not exceed 18s. per week, can be admitted in time of health on the weekly payment of two-pence. By such payment he does, in effect, secure himself against a liability of from 10s. to 80s. per week expense in time of sickness. The soundness of the principle on which the scale is founded appears in that we find it applicable alike to the poorest as to the highest order of Mechanic, for when it reaches this class, the yearly payment becomes considerable (though stiU trifling compared with the advantages secured), and a little further advance would bring us to the confines of private practice, when assistance is no longer necessary. The objection that the payment is out of proportion to the benefit received is specious, but not unanswerable. We must not forget that, though the individual payments are small, they are relatively large, and the collective sum may be con- siderable ; but it is as an effort on the part of the poor to be provident and just, that the value of the payment must be estimated by us.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22344391_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
