Annual report : 1945 / Nottingham and Midland Eye Infirmary.

  • Nottingham and Midland Eye Infirmary (Nottingham, England)
Date:
1945
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report : 1945 / Nottingham and Midland Eye Infirmary. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    equipment replaced by more modern apparatus and appliances. An additional room has been provided and equipped for the testing of visions of patients attending the Out-patients’ de¬ partment. Further improvements are in hand and include the purchase of a refrigerator, a new operation table for the theatre, in addition to considerable equipment for the dispensary and other departments. The installation of a passenger lift is being proceeded with. Orthoptic Department. 9. Steps are being taken to open an Orthoptic Department and negotiations are in progress with the City and County and other Authorities with the object of providing a unified service in the district. The preliminary cost including the necessary equipment will be substantial. This department will prove of benefit to those patients, particularly children of school-age, who require correction of squints. National Health Service. * 10. Although the National Health Service Bill was not pub¬ lished until after the close of the year covered by this Report, the effect of its provisions will be so far reaching that reference to it must be made here. While the Voluntary Hospitals as a whole support the objects of the Bill in aiming to provide a national comprehensive health and hospital service, many of the proposals are unacceptable. The paramount consideration must be that the service should meet the best interests of the patient and the community. The provisions of the Bill relating to hospital service are not so framed because they eliminate all local interest in hospitals and local autonomy in their management. Voluntary Hospitals, as such, will be extinguished. The proposed transfer of ownership of all Hospitals and their endowments to the Minister of Health, and the establishment of a complex scheme of administration substitutes remote control for direct management and personal interest. The spur to improved efficiency in the individual hospital may thus be lost and the human approach to the patient jeopardised. The Bill has now received its second reading in the House of Commons.