THE HOSPITAL SAVINGS ASSOCIATION
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sol, --Has not the time arrived when the principles and practice of the Hospital Savings Association be applied to every Hospital in the country with (say) lifty beds or over, and not only in London or large cities ?
As a one-time member of our local Hospital Management Con llll ittee, I have an intimate acquaintance with the diffi- culties which are ever present to obtain money by which to sairy on the work and also keep up with the advances in medical and surgical appliances. With an organization to hand why should it be less desirable to provide by it co- operative effort against the expenses involved by serious illness which takes the patient out of his or her house for treat- ment, than to insure one's house against fire ?
If a small weekly subscription (3(1. per week) was made by every adult whose income was below agreed limits within the area served by the Hospital the financial question would be reduced to comparatively simple dimensions, and the humili- ating antics that have now to be resorted to to obtain money would be made away with.
venture to think voluntary subscriptions would not suffer to any serious extent, and if those eligible to subscribe to the II.S.A. fund omitted to do so, they should be made to pay substantially if they were unfortunate enough to have to conic into the hospital, to which no reasonable objection could be made if they had deliberately neglected to avail themselves of the opportunity, mice it had lliren provided.
I submit the time -t shortly come when seen lation will have to be provided for everybody who needs medical or surgical treatment outside their own houses, with, of course, proportionate charges for private pay wards. It is an anomaly that on the one hand we boast that our Unlit hospital is equipped second to no other provincial hospital in the country, and yet its services arc restricted (outside eases of accident) to those whom a small coterie of medical men may permit to benefit therefrom. For instance, if anyone needs X-ray treatment, why should they have to go to London with all the attendant expense, while our local hospital X-ray may be standing still at our very door? The same can he said of massage with its modern appliances.--I ant, Sir, &v., E. W. BOWYER.
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