Search results
of the institution and partly to suggest ways to improve mental health in the population at large. Asylum numbers were understood to show the decisive role of certain causes of insanity, notably vicious or unwise behaviour in the form of alcohol consumption, masturbation, and heredity. Statistics and accounts Asylum reports distinguished between medical and administrative numbers. The former were denominated in numbers of persons, the latter most often in money terms. The alienists endeavoured to maintain a distinction
years later, the new specialised Cancer Institute Jules Bordet combined four floors for the poor with three floors for paying patients (who occupied one-third of the beds). 78 Despite these changes the public healthcare system kept losing money. By 1933, the CAP hospitals of the capital suffered a deficit of 9.5 million F. 79 Notwithstanding the hardships of public healthcare
from childless citizens to large families, and for married women to be given a state allowance so that they need not work for money. 45 Radicals and socialists preferred measures to promote children’s welfare, support working mothers and reduce infant mortality. Their vision resulted in the introduction of maternity pay in 1930, family allowances in 1932 and some workplace crèches. These policies to some extent undermined the familialist position, by facilitating women’s paid employment and reducing their dependence
’s improvements were marginal, and probably due to him getting older rather than any fundamental change. If they were to keep spending money on him, it would be better directed to specialised education and arithmetic lessons. Dolto welcomed Georges’s decision to end the therapy. This action placed him in the role of ‘ père castrateur ’, imposing his will on the family, the very thing Dolto had been worried about him failing to do. In another striking comment, she also suggested that stopping the treatment was no bad thing since there
not stopping. However, the Samaritan, Dolto imagined, was ‘a “material” man, practical … a merchant no doubt!’ As such, he would be regularly threatened by bandits, and aware that the man lying injured could just as easily be him. Therefore, he stops to do what he can to help, without significantly inconveniencing himself – a bandage for his wounds, a lift to the nearest inn, enough money to last a couple of days. But those who did not stop need not feel guilty about this. For Dolto the moral of the parable was
Accounting is about ‘how much’ and is usually assumed to be about money. It is viewed as a financial technology related to the administration of finances, costing, and the calculation of efficiency. But this book suggests a broader understanding of accounting, linking related perspectives and lines of research that have so far remained surprisingly unconnected: as a set of calculative practices and paper technologies that turn countable objects into manageable units, figures, and numbers that enable subsequent practices of reckoning, calculating, valuing, controlling, justifying, communicating, or researching and that generate and appear in account- or casebooks, ledgers, lists, or tables.
And Accounting for Health involves both money and medicine and raises moral issues, given that making a living from medical treatment has ethical ramifications. Profiting from the ‘pain and suffering of other people’ was as problematic in 1500 as it is in today’s debates about the economisation of medicine and the admissibility of for-profit hospitals. In current debates about economisation of medicine, it is hardly noticed that some versions of these patterns and problems has been with health and medicine for centuries – not only in the modern sense of economic efficiency, but also in a traditional sense of good medical practice and medical accountability.
Spanning a period of five centuries (1500–2011) and various institutional settings of countries in the Western world, Accounting for Health investigates how calculative practices have affected everyday medical knowing, how these practices changed over time, and what effects these changes have had on medicine and medical knowledge.
hospital and those who cannot afford proper treatment ( Figure 0.1 ). 0.1 Poor Box at St. Bartholomew Hospital, London. In the past, the sealed poor box was opened at regular intervals by the key holders and in the presence of several witnesses. The box was emptied, the money counted
the prisoners as he was ‘perswaded it wilbe comely’ and bode well for future endeavours.18 It is possible that Cromwell sought to use the prisoners as a bargaining chip in case of a Scottish insurgency.19 Unfortunately, the prisoners proved a heavy burden. Hesilrige had already paid substantial amounts of his own money to the marshal of Tynemouth Castle to provide prisoners already there with personal allowances for meat and drink days before the Scottish prisoners arrived.20 Increasing the number of prisoners only exacerbated this problem. The burden was so great
The need for countries to reliably measure and compare health spending is somewhat obvious today. By accounting for health, governments can identify how money flows through their health systems: who funds health care and who provides it; how much money is being spent; and on what. In this way, governments can adjust their priorities, evaluate the impact of interventions, improve services, and address various structural problems. 1 In practically all countries, improving the distribution of
management of nurses’ sickness has recently been targeted as a crucial way in which NHS trusts can save money. The cost of sickness absence nationally for nurses and health care assistants is approximately £141 million and rising. Since 2007, the amount the average NHS trust spends on agency staff to cover sickness has risen from 2.9 per cent of its staffing budget to 5.1 per cent.3 To tackle the problem, the Department of Health commissioned an independent review of the health and wellbeing of NHS staff in 2009, led by Dr Steve Boorman.4 The review found that the direct