One would think, listening to some of the speeches delivered here, that the hospitals in the city and country were Government blessings, that they were established by the Government, that they were having the running of them and that only for the Government there would be no consideration for efficiency or for the patients or sick persons from one end of the country to the other. Now the facts are that the hospitals in bad times and under trying circumstances found themselves unable to provide the accommodation, treatment and other assistance that the suffering people of this country had been supplied with by these hospitals for a very long time. It was in this set of circumstances that a number of governors came before some members of the Executive Council then in office three or four years ago. They put to the Executive Council the absolute necessity for some special dispensation of wealth if they were going to continue or to keep their doors open. In these circumstances, although there was very strong opposition to sweepstakes and so forth, it was found that the money could not be provided from Government sources and that they ought not to be actively prevented from presenting to the Oireachtas a Bill which would enable them to raise money by sweepstakes.
When one hears now that the hospitals have got huge sums of money and that they are very wealthy, one would expect that most of their troubles would have disappeared. In the light of this measure we are still in the possession of the information that they have plenty of money. Whether that is a fact or not I am not in a position to say. I doubt it very much.
I may say that I do not like this measure for very many reasons. The principal of such reasons that I have against it is that there are 26 sections in the Bill, and out of the 26 sections there are two sections devoted towards the making of grants to these hospitals out of the funds, and another application for grants out of the Hospitals Trust Fund. They are the means and they are the supplies for the hospitals. The other 24 sections refer to various provisions of one sort or another, and to various regulations, committees, the persons to be employed, precautions to be taken and so forth, but so far as the hospitals are concerned only two sections. Observe the mind behind the framing of this measure. We find that this new Hospitals Commission or Trustees, or whatever it is called, are to enter into possession of any moneys that are not yet disbursed. Then the Minister proposes to deal with distribution of these funds which were collected under special circumstances, and under the guarantee of the governors and bodies representing the various hospitals.
One would have imagined from the course of the discussion here that in the very difficult circumstances in which the hospitals found themselves in keeping open at all, that some tribute at least would have been paid to the various committees managing these hospitals; that some tribute would have been paid to the great services rendered by surgeons and medical men who freely gave a good deal of their time, and whose whole concern in their work is to have their hospitals a credit to their profession, a means of providing for the relief of suffering, the cure of disease and the other infirmities from which people suffer.
Have any of those professional men and others who contributed so much of their time, so much of their genius and so much of the gifts that God gave them, been consulted about this measure? Looking at it then one would have thought somebody sat down with a hostile notion in his mind towards the hospitals. There are in the Bill two sections about the distribution of the funds, and then so many sections qualifying, regulating and so on. The Minister may accept or reject any report made to him by the Hospitals Commission.
The Minister may, apart altogether from the report, entirely on his own initiative make grants to the hospitals. I presume he does it under some direction or some recommendation from somebody other than the Hospitals Committee or Trustees that are set up under this Bill. There are two sets of Commissions—Trustees and Hospitals Commission. There is suspicion even there. Not satisfied with the bodies the Minister creates or with the bodies set up by the Minister himself, in addition to all this, it is not necessary to have in this case any professional assistance or advice as to how the distribution of the moneys is made to these hospitals. It is not a good system, it is not a wise system. It is not a system which if one were parting with his own money, or one making a will would follow. He would get some medical person or another; he would get some advice as to how the money would be spent if he were interested in the treatment of humanity.
We are told that the Dublin hospitals are much better off than ever they were, that they have more money coming in than anybody had ever anticipated. That is not quite correct. A letter appeared recently over the name of a governor or surgeon of one of these institutions, pointing out that his hospital had been at a disadvantage rather than an advantage as a result of the sweepstakes. A book was given or lent to me some time ago by a member of this House. Deputies on the opposite benches, or their friends, burned it a few years ago. An account was given in that book of the first hospital established here in the eleventh or twelfth century by a man called Robert Le Palmer, a Dane. It had accommodation for 50 beds. In the course of an inquiry held into the Dublin hospitals in 1854, the question of that particular hospital came up for consideration. It was confiscated during the time of the Reformation. A witness was asked what became of the property. The property was seized by the Crown and sold. Various people got it. He was asked what about Guy's or St. Bartholomew's, or some other hospital in England. He said that was also seized, but handed over to trustees and since maintained as a hospital. There is no double dose of sin in having a hospital endowed with money. But a great mistake is made if, by reason of a huge experiment such as the sweepstake, large sums of money have come in from the charitable or speculative public for the assistance of the hospitals and the hospitals are worse off than they were because of its being held up. In the letter which I have referred to it is stated that the sum deducted from the hospital in question is about £7,000 a year. It may be £7,000 over two or three years, because it is some time since I read the letter. Let us examine the position of that hospital having regard to the deprivation of these sums of money. It is not the only hospital concerned. I have heard of another hospital which had grants from the local authority and the Government amounting to £3,500. What capitalised sum would be necessary to place that hospital in the same position as it was before its finances were interrupted by this shower of gold which, some people say, has come its way. £70,000 at 5 per cent. would be required to place that hospital in the position it was before the interruption.
Going further through the Bill, I find that according to Section 24 (5) "no grant out of the Hospitals Trust Fund shall be made or applied for or towards the future maintenance of the grantee." According to sub-section (6) the expression "the grantee" means "the hospital or organisation to whom a grant out of the Hospitals Trust Fund is made under this section." The word "maintenance" means "ordinary day to day support and upkeep properly chargeable to income." The expressions "past maintenance" and "future maintenance" mean respectively "maintenance before and maintenance after the making of the grant out of the Hospitals Trust Fund in relation to which the expression is used." In this Bill, provision is made for the endowment of a bed. The endowment of a bed, I presume, would connote the maintenance of the bed. But if my interpretation be correct, no sum of money can be given to a hospital for future maintenance. What, then, is the position of those hospitals which have been in the privileged position of getting a few thousand pounds from Government funds which have been stopped by reason of this shower of sweepstake money which has come in and which, they say, they have not received? Deputy Good has referred to the work done by the committee. The committee has done very useful work. It has, at least, established standardised accounts, so that we now know where we are. Very different accounts have got to be kept by different hospitals. It is very easy to criticise the hospitals and to say that they do not give treatment to this, that or the other person. Is there as much energy, determination and philanthropic effort used up by the persons concerned in looking for subscriptions for the hospitals as there is in criticising them? There is scarcely any more expensive institution than a hospital and hospitals cannot give help of any sort or kind unless they get funds from some source. By reason of the sweepstakes and of the conclusion people have come to that huge sums of money are available to the hospitals, public and private subscriptions have dried up. I understand that the Minister is now going to let loose the sum of money which has been dammed up. It is about time.
There is mention in the first section of the Bill of the provision of money for medical research—a very interesting subject. Perhaps the best contributors to it—I do not know whether I am right in chronological order or not—were Corrigan of Dublin, Pasteur of France, and Banting of Canada, the discoverer of insulin. There was also a well-known German whose name, I think, was Von Lichtenberg. There was also a Viennese who specialised in splints, Bohler. It is rather interesting that not a single penny of research money was spent on any of these remarkable, providential discoveries. That is very remarkable, indeed. I should like to know if the Parliamentary Secretary can give us any indication of the results achieved in respect of the sums of money that have been spent on research. These results ought to be available. There are very rich research organisations in various parts of the world, not excluding the Rockefeller Institute. It would certainly interest me and, perhaps, a number of members of the medical profession if we could get some indication of the result of their labours. I hope no laymen are to go into this business of medical research. I am not expressing professional views upon it; I am simply stating historical facts. I should be glad to have professional information on the subject, if available. The Bill, as I said, has 26 sections and two of them are concerned with the hospitals. The rest are concerned with new schemes of organisation and with reorganisation. The two which make reference to the hospitals disclose as many obstacles in connection with the distribution of the money as facilities. Everybody is agreed that our hospitals ought to be well equipped. Equally important to the equipment of the hospitals is the maintenance necessary to allow them to be run. There is not much use in having a Rolls Royce car if you have not oil or petrol or a person to drive it. Similarly, if we are to look after the sick and infirm poor and alleviate suffering, we ought to see that these institutions which were running so well up to two or three years will not have their operations interrupted. I oppose the Bill.