In the city of Nantes there is a general hospital, called the “Sanitat,” for the reception of the old and impotent; at present it contains about 800; it answers to an English workhouse; the inmates are lodged, fed, clothed, and are taken care of in every way: they are employed about trifling work, but the average gain by it does not exceed 20 fr. per annum for each. The average cost appears to be about 11 to 12 sous per day for each person. The establishment of St. Joseph’s, already alluded to, is, in fact, a sort of assistant to the Sanitat (although supported by private charity) for the 100 to 120 old people it contains. The Sanitat has a ward for dangerous as well as ordinary lunatics; is under the same board and direction as the Hôtel Dieu (the general hospital for the sick); but each is supported by its own funds, arising from bequests and donations from private persons, and from the city funds; yet if either hospital should require any assistance, the money wanted would be voted by the city treasury.
The general council for the department votes about 1200 to 1250 fr. annually to the Sanitat from the departmental funds.
Sick.
Nantes has a general hospital (Hôtel Dieu) for the sick, containing 600 beds, 300 of which are reserved for the indigent of the city. The expense of this establishment is about a franc to 25 sous per day to each person. The military are received at 20 sous per man per day, which is paid by the government. It is supported by its own funds, arising from bequests and donations, and grants made from time to time by the city; is under the same board and direction as the Sanitat. If a poor person becomes sick in the country, he is either relieved by the curé of the parish or by some of the more wealthy neighbours, or he comes into Nantes and resides there for a week or ten days before he makes an application to the mayor to be admitted into the hospital; he is then sent there as an inhabitant of the city. The authorities in the country have not the right to send a patient to the Hôtel Dieu, yet a great number arrive at the hospital, sent by country practitioners, who have not the skill, or perhaps the leisure or inclination, to attend to them; and they are always received, if it be possible to take them in. The students at the hospital are ever ready to admit any difficult cases or fractures from the country, for their own improvement.
There are also hospitals for the sick at the following places in the Loire Inférieure: Ancenis, for the town and commune; Chateaubriand, Paimbœuf, Savenay, and Clisson, for the towns only.
Besides the succour afforded to the poor at their homes by the bureau de bienfaisance, there are three dispensaries supported by that establishment, for administering relief to the sick, who are attended at their homes, if necessary, by the nuns of St. Vincent de Paule, 12 or 14 of whom are kept in the pay of, and are wholly supported by the bureau. They carry to them soup and other victuals, remedies, &c., and lend them linen and clothes, if wanted. There are a number of young men, who are either studying, or have just completed their study of medicine, who are anxious to give their assistance gratis, and who are in constant attendance on those who are receiving relief from the dispensaries. It is impossible to state the extent to which such relief is given. The nuns are paid by the bureau de bienfaisance, which also pays for the medicines, &c. they distribute; but the sum that is thus expended bears but a small proportion to the amount that is distributed by the hands of those sisters, who, from the accurate knowledge they possess of the real situation and condition of each person they visit, are employed by numerous wealthy persons to distribute privately such charities as they feel disposed to give; and can thus be well applied in providing those little comforts for the invalids, which cannot be sent from the bureau to all those who require them, although the funds are increased from time to time by the proceeds of representations at the theatre, public concerts, &c. given for that purpose.
Independent of the foregoing, there are several tradesmen’s societies on the plan of benefit societies in England, the members of which pay five or six sous per week, and receive, in case of sickness, all necessary assistance in medicines, &c., besides an indemnity of a franc to a franc and a half per day during the time they are unable to work.
Orphans, Foundlings, or Deserted Children.
The law requires an establishment (a tour) in each department, for the secret reception of children. Every arrival is particularly noted and described in a register kept for that purpose, that the infant may be recognised if it should be claimed. The children, after having received all necessary assistance and baptism, are confided to women in the country (a regulation of this department only), to dry-nurse them (au biberon); they are paid eight francs per month for the first year, seven for the second and third, six until the ninth year, and four francs per month from that time until the child is 12 years old; when the nurse who has taken care of one from its birth to that age receives a present of 50 fr. for her attention. A basket of requisite linen is given with the child, and a new suit of clothes annually for seven years. These regulations are observed for orphans and foundlings. The registers for the last 20 years give an average of 360 to 370 admissions annually; more than one-half of them die under one year old; therefore, with the deaths at other ages, and the claims that are made for some of them before they attain 12 years, the establishment has seldom at its charge more than from 1200 to 1300, of all ages, from 0 to 12.
The parents being unknown when they place their infants in the “tour,” cannot be traced afterwards, unless they acknowledge themselves; they are, however, as has been observed before, liable for the expenses of their offspring; and whenever they are discovered, whether by claiming their children or otherwise, the right to make them repay the costs they have occasioned is always maintained, and they are compelled to pay the whole, or as much as their finances will admit of.