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Early Leadership |
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The original rules and regulations set down by the three men who made up the entire Board of Trustees are indeed interesting. Although our Board of Trustees today has complete and final authority, it does not exercise its supreme power as did the original three-man Board. An excellent example is according to the Trustees Minutes, the calling of a special meeting of the Board on March 13, 1886 to review the application for admission to the hospital of one patient.
The following are excerpts from the original Rules and Regulations set up in 1886:
RULES FOR ADMISSION
All persons desiring admission to the hospitaTas patients must be examined by one or more of the visiting or consulting physicians, who shall with the Trustees, determine as to their fitness for admission.
Patients occupying private rooms will be charged from ten dollars per week upwards. (The Trustees shall determine whether the applicant for admission shall be free or for pay and in the latter case shall fix the rate of payment.) The ordinary charge in the wards will be four dollars per week. This includes board and nursing.
GOVERNMENT OF PATIENTS
Non-paying patients who are able, will be expected to assist in any work of the institution when called upon to do so by the Matron.
Profane and obscene language and any improper conduct of any description is forbidden.
No patient in the wards shall be allowed to meddle with the gas or steam.
All patients will be expected to take a bath when admitted and as often afterward as the Matron may direct.
VISITORS
The general public will be admitted on Wednesdays from two o'clock to four p.m.
The friends of patients may be admitted every day except Sunday from two o'clock to three p.m.
VISITING PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS
All professional services in the hospital shall be gratuitous, and any physician and surgeon accepting an appointment upon the staff shall thereby waive all claim for compensation in money and perform his duty as a charity to the sick and disabled patients under his care, and for the advancement of medical and surgical science.
On January 14,1901 the Board of Trustees Voted: "that each of the six physicians who constitute the Active Staff of the Cooley Dickinson Hospital shall be allowed the privilege of treating private patients in said hospital provided such patient pays the hospital for board and nursing not less than ten dollars per week".
This rule apparently raised a credit problem because on July n, 1904 the Trustees Voted: "that physicians treating private patients in the hospital would be held responsible for the price of the room".
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