Faire chambre à part. Patients indigents et payants dans les hôpitaux généraux de Montréal en 1911

Type of resource
Authors/collaborators
Title
Faire chambre à part. Patients indigents et payants dans les hôpitaux généraux de Montréal en 1911
Abstract
The authors undertake a re-evaluation of the transition of charity hospitals for the poor to commercial hospitals for paying patients based on the analysis of socio-demographic characteristics of patients from three general hospitals in Montreal in 1911. In analyzing this transition, they note that historiography has emphasized the respective roles of doctors, the Church, and the State, as well as the growing recourse to the commercialization of hospital services in order to increase the institutions’ revenues. However, the authors point out, it has focused less on the social demand for free hospital care and its impact on the transformation of hospitals. To shed light on this aspect, the authors compiled the information of some 10,000 patients from the admission records of Montreal’s Hôtel-Dieu, Notre-Dame, and Royal Victoria hospitals in 1911. They discovered that this previously unpublished data records the socio-demographic composition of patients according to their place of residence, ethnicity, age, gender, occupation, and, finally, whether or not they paid for their hospitalization. The authors conclude that this data helps identify a transitional time for Montreal hospitals during which indigent and paying patients had separate rooms in the establishments. It sheds new light on the paradoxical situation of hospital administrations which, to strengthen their commitment to the commercialization of services, had to demand public subsidies to alleviate the burden of the costs associated with the growing need for free care.
Publication
Canadian Historical Review
Volume
Vol. 102
Issue
no. 4
Pages
570-599
Date
December 2021
Language
fr
Citation
Petitclerc, Martin, Yvan Rousseau, and François Guérard. “Faire chambre à part. Patients indigents et payants dans les hôpitaux généraux de Montréal en 1911.” Canadian Historical Review Vol. 102, no. 4 (December 2021): 570–599.
Find in a library
Permalink