The need of care for the convalescent from the hospital standpoint / by S.T. Armstrong.

  • Armstrong, Samuel Treat.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The need of care for the convalescent from the hospital standpoint / by S.T. Armstrong. 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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    English hospitals find greater need for this con- valescent relief. The East London Hospital for Children, having 109 beds and treating 1,587 pa- tients, has the Princess Mary Convalescent Home with twenty-eight beds, and treated 317 patients. The French Hospital, that has seventy beds and treated 790 patients, has a convalescent home at Brighton with sixteen beds, and treated 180 patients. Victoria Hospital for Children, with 104 beds and treating 962 patients, has a convalescent home at Broadstairs with fifty beds and treated 663 patients. Middlesex Hospital has 343 beds and treated 3,147 patients, and its convalescent home at the seashore has sixty-one beds and treated 878 patients. Char- ing Cross Hospital, with 187 beds and 2,465 patients treated, has a convalescent home of fifty beds, which treated 470 patients. These figures might be con- tinued and would show an accommodation of about twenty per cent, of the hospital population. And it is believed that the number that would be helped would be greater if it were not for the question of finance. From the cost of administration standpoint it is materially more advantageous to provide convales- cent hospitals. In the latter the cost per patient in Great Britain is about one half of what it is in a general hospital; and in the Massachusetts General Hospital, while the per diem cost in 1906 was $2,062, it was $1,302 in the convalescent home. From the standpoint of cost of construction, while the urban hospital of the present day type will cost from $3,000 to $5,000 a bed, the convalescent hospi- tal can well be built at a cost of from $1,000 to $1,500 a bed. One of the greatest difficulties that would be met with in applying the principle of treatment in a con- valescent hospital to patients whose preliminary