Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the hospitals of Dublin : with appendices / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Marjesty.

  • Ireland. Dublin Hospitals' Commission.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the hospitals of Dublin : with appendices / presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Marjesty. 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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    DUBLIN HOSPITALS' COMMISSION REPORT. TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE EARL OF CARLISLE, K.G., &c., LORD LIEUTENANT-GENERAL AND GENERAL GOVERNOR OF IRELAND. We, the Commissioners appointed by your Excellency's Warrant of the 9th May last, to inquire into the Hospitals of Dublin, have agreed to the following Report, which we have the honour to submit to your Excellency. Your Excellency's Warrant directs us to make inquiry into the conditions and regulations of Medical Institutions in the city of Dublin, with reference to grants of pecuniary assistance from the public funds, in aid of their support; and the Under-Secretary's letter of the same date states that your Excellency is desirous of receiving full information as to the future arrangements which the Commissioners would recommend in reference to the public grants to those Institutions which, in their opinion, should receive such aid. In obedience to these instructions, we have instituted the fullest inquiry in our power into all the matters which concern the conduct of these Hospitals, the amount of the present funds of each Institution, and the various sources from which they are derived; and being anxious to ascertain, as accurately as we could, the entire extent of Hospital accommodation now existing in Dublin, and the manner in which that accommodation is provided, we visited all the Hospitals of the city, minutely inspecting them in every part. We give, in an Appendix, tabular statements, showing the funds, and extent of Appendix, No. 1. accommodation available at each Hospital. Having before us the very full evidence which is contained in the Report of the Commissioners of 1842, and in the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons in 1854, on Dublin Hospitals, we have chiefly confined ourselves to those points to which we understand our attention to have been more especially called, namely: 1. Whether any of the institutions can be advantageously consolidated. 2. The best mode of distributing the grant of £10,000 recommended by the Committee of the House of Commons, with reference more particularly to the advancement of medical science. In forming the conclusions at which we have arrived, we have carefully kept in view the recommendation of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, that all Hospitals which receive assistance from the State ought to afford medical instruction—an opinion which we adopt in its most extended sense. And in the course of our inquiries we have accordingly endeavoured to ascertain the full capacity of each Institution for this object, and whether its government and management are such as would be likely to increase its funds, and to disburse them with a judicious economy. We were anxious to consider the question of consolidation, in the first place, because it was obvious that on the result of that would mainly depend the man- ner in which the future grant should be distributed; and we annex a paper on Appendix, No. 2. this subject, drawn up by Mr. South, one of the members of the Commission. This paper proposes a plan for consolidating the several medical establishments on the south side of Dublin, and we are of opinion that it is worthy of serious consideration. If the concurrence of the several parties concerned could be secured for some such plan, it would be the means of providing the sick poor of Dublin with more certain Hospital accommodation, and of greatly increasing the opportunities for the improvement of medical instruction.