In order to maintain the objects of the charity, and to ensure the comfort of those for whom its provisions are intended, some well-considered regulations have to be adopted and enforced; and the most discouraging circumstances with which the committee and their officers have to contend, are those which arise from the negligence of subscribers nominating patients, or from the demands made on the charity by those who constantly expect more benefits from the institution than their contributions would represent even if they were paid three times over.
It is, perhaps, not to be wondered at that people, anxious to secure for their protégés the advantages of such means of recovery as are represented by a temporary hospital where there has only been one death in five years, should readily contribute their guinea for the sake of gaining the privilege, even though they may add to that small subscription the five shillings a week which is the sum required with each patient. What has to be complained of, however, is that constant attempts are made to introduce cases which are so far from being convalescent, that they are still suffering from disease, and require constant medical or surgical treatment. In order to do this, nominations are frequently obtained from country subscribers, and it has required the constant vigilance of the examining physician and the committee to avoid the distressing necessity of obtaining for such patients admission to other hospitals, or sending them back to their own homes, not only without having received benefit from the institution, but perhaps injured by the journey to and fro when they were in a weak and suffering condition.
It should be remembered that the Seaford Hospital is not for the sick, but for persons recovering from sickness,—those for whom the best medicines are regular and ample meals, grand bracing air, sea-baths, long hours of quiet and restorative sleep, and that general direction of their daily progress towards complete recovery, which will often make them strong and set them up completely, even in the twenty-eight days of their sea-side sojourn.
To send patients who require the medical care and attendance which can only be provided in a hospital for the special disorders from which they suffer, or who are afflicted with incurable diseases, is unjust, both to the poor creatures themselves and to the charity which cannot receive them.
For consumptive patients, except in the early or threatening stage of phthisis, Seaford is unsuitable, but a month at the hospital for patients of consumptive tendency has been known to produce remarkably beneficial results. It is in cases of recovery after rheumatism and rheumatic fever, or when strength is required after painful or exhausting surgical operations, in nervous depression, debility, pleurisy, and recovery from accidents, that the fine air is found to be wonderfully invigorating; for Seaford is high and dry, the subsoil being sand resting on chalk, so that there is little surface evaporation, while the shelter afforded by Beachy Head screens this little bay of the coast from the east wind.
It is not to be wondered at that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the late Bishop of Winchester should have joined many of the London clergy, and more than eighty of the most eminent physicians and surgeons connected with metropolitan hospitals, to recommend this charity as one especially deserving of public support. Those who are ever so superficially acquainted with the homes and difficulties of the poorer classes in London know that the period of debility after sickness, when the general hospital has discharged the patient, or when the parish doctor has taken his leave, is a terrible time. Too weak to work, without means to buy even common nourishment at the crisis when plentiful food is requisite, and stimulated to try to labour when the heart has only just strength to beat, men and women are ready to faint and to perish unless helping hands be held out to them. Try to imagine some poor cabman or omnibus-driver, lying weak and helpless after coming from a hospital; think of the domestic servant, whose small savings have all been spent in the endeavour to get well enough to take another place; of the poor little wistful, eager-eyed errand-boy, scantily fed, and with shaking limbs, that will not carry him fast enough about the streets. Try to realise what a boon it must be to a letter-carrier, slowly recovering from the illness by which he has been smitten down, or to the London waiter, worn and debilitated by long hours of wearying attendance to his duties, to have a month of rest and, re-invigoration at a place like this. In the table of inmates during the last few years are to be found a host of domestic servants, mechanics and apprentices, warehousemen and labourers, 36 housewives (there is much significance in that word, if we think of the poor wife or mother to be restored to her husband and children), 46 needlewomen, 19 clerks, 15 teachers (mark that) 41 school-children, 9 nurses, 1 policeman, 3 seamen and watermen, 1 letter-carrier, 4 errand-boys, 7 Scripture-readers, and others of various occupations.
It is no wonder, I say, that the general hospitals should regard this Convalescent Home at Seaford as a boon; but, unfortunately for the charity, the appreciation which it receives from some of those wealthy and magnificently-endowed institutions operates as a very serious drain on its own limited resources, which are only supplied by voluntary subscriptions, contributions, and legacies. Every subscriber of a guinea annually, and every donor of ten guineas in one sum, has the privilege of recommending one patient yearly, with an additional recommendation for every additional subscription of one guinea, or donation of ten guineas. The payment of five shillings a week by each patient admitted is also required by the guarantee of a householder written on the nomination paper, and the travelling expenses of the patient must also be paid, the Brighton Railway Company most benevolently conveying patients to the hospital by their quick morning train, in second-class carriages at third-class fare.
Now it is quite obvious that the five shillings a week, though it removes the institution from the position of an absolute charity, goes but a very short distance in providing for the needs of the inmates, and when the guinea contribution is added to it, there is still a very wide margin to fill before much good can be effected. Let us see, then, what is the effect of every subscription of a guinea representing a claim, as in the case of the patients sent from the general hospitals.
The cost of those admirable medicines, food and drink, wine, milk, and sea-baths, together with the expenses of administration, and the rental will represent at least £4 8s. per head for each patient, and as Guy's, Bartholomew's, St. Thomas's, and the London Hospitals, each subscribing their ten guineas annually, demand their ten nominations in exchange, the account stands thus:—
For each case, five shillings per week for four weeks, and one guinea subscription = £2 1s., which, deducted from the actual cost (£4 8s.), leaves £2 7s. to be paid out of the funds of the Seaford Institution, which, on ten patients a year, represents £23 10s. as the annual contribution of this poor little charity to each of the four great charitable foundations of the metropolis.