What was life like before the NHS?

[Tatami]

The NHS turned 75 yesterday. It got me thinking about what was life like before the NHS. I'm most interested in the 1920s and 30s, when my Grandmothers would have been born. Would my Great-Grandmothers and their generation most likely have given birth at home, paid a midwife or just relied on the wisdom of a relative or friend? They weren't at all wealthy. Were working men given priority for any free or charitable care? Is there a good book or any records where I can find out more? Thank you.

Casualty is still on - BBC1 on Saturday night - and probably not anything like real life.

@Sugarfree23 this was called casualty 1900s and was set in the 19th century Royal London Hospital I think.

My gm was lucky as her mother had breastfed the others and had good spacing, two to four years (though there could have been a couple of losses) between children instead of a baby a year like some of her neighbours. So while my gm was the seventh there weren't lots of little ones to care for. She also had a teenage daughter to help. Gm has has lifelong hearing issues but no other problems.

Gosh, I haven’t read theA J cronies novels in years, sat on my bookcase 🤷🏼‍♀️. Will now go and get the dust off…wasn’t there one about a missionary Doctor too? Maya I’m confused with something else.

Mental health treatment STILL has a long way to go. The whole system of “care in the community “ is flawed and based solely on medicating people and hoping they don’t slide into crisis. It’s not just that it remains, despite government commitments, chronically underfunded, but it has huge vacancies due to the fact it is hard work with little rewards in terms of seeing improvements in patients
even where patients are in psychiatric units , some of these are appalling.
I was carer for my Ex with schizophrenia for 20 years and was made mentally ill myself form the strain of that role and lack of support and being expected to be his therapist, care coordinator, CPN, and sometimes psychologist . I could get psychological therapy more easily through primary service (GP) than my ex did through the mental health secondary services - he had one course of group therapy for stress only, in the 20 years he was diagnosed, and nothing aimed at helping him with psychosis 🤦‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️

i have only been divorced 2.5 years, and now have my 86 year old dad confined within a mental assessment unit for severe psychosis that they can’t diagnose. He’s been in a virtual prison for last 4 months, care is mainly faced by care assistants who are paid shit money and low skilled - I’ve never gone in to find anyone talking to him in his room, he is dirty, smelly, being drugged with sedatives at wrong time of day so his sleep is messed up making his psychosis worse. We can’t get hold of care leads to tell us what is happening with his diagnosis and when he can be cared for in something resembling a home vis the prison. It’s bloody horrifying.

my greatest hope for last 22 years now, is someone rethinks the whole principle of care in community for people with severe and enduring mental illnesses. But it’s cheaper to just dose them up, and wait for someone to pick up pieces (police, ambulance crews etc) when it all goes wrong

the NHS hasn’t made good progress with secondary mental health services frankly.(services used by those with severe and enduring diagnosis’ like schizophrenia , bipolar, personality disorders etc) . Progress has been made, of sorts, through drug development, but that has nothing to do with NHS .

quite frankly there were better care models in the 18th century than what we have now as best practice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Retreat

Or better still, read the books. So much better!

Mascot for Uncle is indeed by AJ Cronin.

My husbands Grandmother, long since deceased, always said that EVERY doctors visit, pill and potion had to be paid for.
Her own mother was bed ridden, she left school at 14 to care for her. Her father went to work and at the end of the week when he came home with his wages he paid the rent followed by some of the ever increasing doctors bill. This went on for years and kept them poor.
Her mother died two weeks after the NHS was launched but it took a good bit longer to finally pay off the doctors bill.
She wouldn’t hear a thing said against the NHS because she knew how awful the alternative was.

. The washing involved physically scrubbing and wrining it, and handing it up

And what do you think was the result of this? I worked in a nursing home in 1990 Run partially by nuns Female residents only. I was told by the Sister that the reason a lot of the residents had very painful arthritis in their hands and wrists was from a lifetime of wringing out wet washing.

think of Beth in Little Women

Beth had scarlet fever, and it was severe enough to damage her heart. Heart infections were frequent and caused by all sorts, most commonly rheumatic fever or streptococcal bacteria.

Haven't read all the thread, so sorry if already mentioned, but have you looked up 'Sick and Dividing Clubs'? My uncle was a young man in work before WW2 and he paid into the sick club. I think if you couldn't go to work it paid you a bit of money each week -'on the sick' -and I guess you could use the money to pay the doctor. Anyone know?

1920s - My grandmother had a poisoned hand, infected hand. Antibiotics not in use. Doc came on his round every day, like Dr. Cameron and Dr. Finlay, and dressed it and saturated it with antiseptic. She had to have part of the index finger taken off, but it stopped the infection from spreading and causing her to die of sepsis, I guess. They weren't dirt poor but they weren't rich either. I guess they managed to pay.

I never really thought about handwashig causing arthritis. But I was more thinking of using a mechanical wringer or mangle two rollers that squeeze the water out rather than twisting clothes - my point was really that 75 years ago people were fitter than they are now.

Everything they did was labour intensive, everything from shopping, washing clothes, putting coal on the fire, entertainment.
Even office jobs involve more moving around, keeping physical files, physical letter that needed posted.

They'd howl with laughter if someone suggested joining a gym to keep fit. Their lifestyle kept them fit. Few had cars they walked or got the bus - still a walk to the bus stop.

It was the Tredegar version of that scheme that inspired Bevan to create the NHS.

The Tredegar Medical Aid Society provided the inspiration for Bevan’s model for the NHS. This provided healthcare to thousands of people locally funded by individual financial contributions.

I think the sick clubs were run by pubs and other organisations. Yeah, the NHS is the very big version.

Yes. I am in my 70s. I can remember back as far as the 50s, the feelings of the decades. A few years ago, on Any Answers (radio) a man did make factual comparisons between the have-a-lots and the haven't-muchs and the gap is wider now than a few decades ago. I wish there would be a closing of the wide gap.

Interesting comment.

My mother was born in the early 1920s and she told me how as a young girl she had a cut on her lower leg which became infected. The doctor was called only when she had a fever and it had tracked up to her groin area. The doctor knew their financial situation (6 kids, her father was laid off in 1929 in the recession and didn't work full time again until the mid 1930s) and he didn't charge them. He apparently winked at my mum on the way our and said he'd add half a crown to the bill of his next client who could pay.
So pre NHS if you were poor, you only called the doctor in an absolute emergency, and if your doctor wasn't charitable (as mum's family doctor fortunately was) you didn't get treatment and you risked death, or as has been mentioned above you paid in installments.
I know my mum's story sounds all a bit like The Railway Children, but I'd guess that quite a few doctors worked in this way

Lots run by unions - it was one of the main reasons to join if you were in a skilled manual job like mining or steelwork (plus the protection from being unfairly dismissed and other workplace protections which we now have written into law).

www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/chapter/inheritance

This is an excellent snapshot.

I know a pediatrician in the US who worked in a similar way. She couldn't see children go untreated but, not all Doctors would be like that.

My grandma lost all five of her sisters from scarlet fever in one week

Workhouses (later Public Assistance Institutions) had infirmaries which provided some hospital care for the poorest and geriatric care for the elderly. Most of them were used as Emergency Hospitals during WW2 and then taken over by the NHS in 1948.

From 1911 onwards workers and their dependents got coverage via National Insurance.

Voluntary Hospitals offered a combination of privately paid care, charity beds (sometimes funded by individual donors) and some had subscription schemes you could pay into in return for treatment when required.

Serious communicable diseases like TB were treated in institutions funded by local authorities.

District Nursing Associations also provided nursing care: District Nursing Associations - QNI Heritage

Births were usually at home rather than in hospital.

@Tatami im up watching tv and there’s a 10 part series starting at 2.40am on bbc 4 called Health before the NHS. The road to recovery. It’s about the early 20th century. I thought you would find it interesting.

😥
I can't imagine this and I'm knocking on for 50.
Awful