The medical charities of Birmingham : being letters on hospital management and administration / by Scrutator.
- Scrutator
- Date:
- 1863
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The medical charities of Birmingham : being letters on hospital management and administration / by Scrutator. 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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![G7 charity ; how wicked it is that a whole years' income should be spent in advertising the names of some of its officers, hovv contemptible it is that others should be appointed to serve it who can give no time or attention to its interests or its needs. Every year will witness some cardinal improvement in hospital ad- ministration, and if in any case a relapse into error is observed, it will be only the wave which is receding, while the tide is fast rolling in. It is not uninteresting to note the tendency of public feeling, and the attitude of hospital managers, since these matters have been gene- rally discussed. The public at once admit the necessity for hospital reforms, and con- sider only the most practical method of applying them. Hospital managers, however, take a very different course. Some have admitted the necessity for reforms, and have made ; arrangements, like honorable and conscientious men, for their adoption. Such a course must ever redound to their own honour and to the ] public good. Others have called meetings to confirm their own errors and to ful- iminate denunciations against those who have presumed to expose them. They will live to regret it. To those who have never known the right way, says an eminent ■'Writer, its narrow wicket gate lies always on the latch, but to those who having known it wander thus widely and thus insolently, the bye- ways to the prison-house are short, and the voices of recall are few. Others have affected indifference or contempt, or have endeavoured tto trace to feelings of personal hostility, suggestions for reforms on which tthe whole world is agreed, or have even thought it a seemly thing to meet nan argument with an imputation or a suggestion with a sneer. The public may rely upon it that hospitals have no enemies so bitter, (or so difficult to fight, as those persons on their own managing boards who are deaf to every proposition for improvement that does not ema- noate from themselves. I have written, at some length, of the duties of our local charities ■towards the public. I must briefly consider what are the duties of the ■>3iiblic. I These duties are three-fold :—First, to the charities ;—Second, to the Biospital population ;—Third, to themselves. I Those institutions which it is the duty of the public to support, I liiave already endeavoured to indicate ; those which do the most good at lliie smallest cost. I There is a certain section of the public whose duties in this respect mre more than usually onerous—I mean the clergy and ministers of reli- Krion. ■ I have already said that they have become, and they will still further ■•ecome, a sort of local pai-liaraent regulating the affairs of charities. A fcreat power is entrusted to them. I A mere expression of opinion from them has, before now, cau-ed ■mmediate justice to be done, in a case where private individuals had wl'holly failed to obtain it. I I will not presume to dictate to these gentlemen as to what ideas BiQould actuate them when next the General Charities Fund is distri-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22299488_0067.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
