About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

LOG IN
LOG IN


5 Medico-Legal & Criminological Rev. 1 (1937)

handle is hein.journals/medlgjr5 and id is 1 raw text is: THE MEDICO.LEGAL AND CRIMINOLOGICAL REVIEW VOL. V. PART I. JANUARY, 1937 THE LEGAL STATUS OF VOLUNTARY HOSPITALS* By C. E. A. BEDWELL, Honorary Member of the Middle Temple; House Governor of King's College Hospital THE position of voluntary hospitals is a subject upon which there is a good deal of difference of opinion at the present time. Points of view are liable to be influenced by sentiment and even prejudice. There is some general agreement that the voluntary hospitals are passing through a period of transition. In such circumstances the legal aspects of any problem usually provide an element of stability. There may, accordingly, be some value in an endeavour to examine the legal status of voluntary hospitals. To begin with, assistance may be provided in defining what is meant by a volun- tary hospital. In London King Edward's Hospital Fund is generally regarded as especially concerned with their maintenance, so that the Act constituting that body seems to be the place in which to look for a definition likely to receive general acceptance. King Edward's Hospital Fund. King Edward's Hospital Fund, originally founded in 1897 under the title of the Prince of Wales's Hospital Fund for London, was incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1907.1 But voluntary hospitals are not mentioned in it. The Act sets forth that the * A paper read before the Medico-Legal Society on October 22, 1936, the President in the chair. 1 7 Edw. VII., ch. lxx.