GuruNanakPunjabiSabhaCharitableDispensary

A public dispensary, charitable dispensary or free dispensary gives advice and medicines free-of-charge, or for a small charge.

Provident dispensary

In the 19th and early 20th centuries a provident dispensary was a clinic offering medical care to people who made a small weekly payment as a kind of medical insurance.

History

In England, from the later 18th Century onwards, there was a growth in Medical Philanthropy. This saw the establishment of voluntary hospitals offering

in-patient A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other health care ...

and dispensaries offering

out-patient A patient is any recipient of health care services that are performed by healthcare professionals. The patient is most often ill or injured and in need of treatment by a physician, nurse, optometrist, dentist, veterinarian, or other health care ...

treatment. By 1800 dispensaries dealt with at least 10,000 admissions per year. There are competing claims to where the first dispensary was founded but it is clear that dispensaries began being established in numbers from 1770 onwards. The

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

Dispensary for the Medical Relief of the Poor, founded in 1786, is considered to be the first public dispensary in the United States.''Philadelphia Encyclopedia'' "Dispensaries" by Steven J. Peitzman
/ref> According to a historian of health services ''"During the nineteenth century access to healthcare was class based"''. Dispensaries were funded by voluntary subscriptions. Subscribers would "recommend" local people to be treated by the dispensary. In the main the medical practitioners engaged by dispensaries offered their services for free. One of the earlier English cities to have a provident dispensary was

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...

(dispensary opened in 1830) where, in the 1840s, members subscribed one penny a week for adults and a halfpenny a week for each of their children. This was seen as a suitable arrangement for working-class people who wanted to be provident and self-reliant, avoiding charitable treatment offered to 'paupers', but with no hope of paying the fees charged to wealthier people. A provident dispensary needed a few hundred 'club' members to pay for one doctor. Some dispensaries had extra funding from philanthropists, and some arranged for hospital specialists to see dispensary patients at reduced fees. Doctors at a few provident dispensaries, in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

for example, would visit patients at home. A provident dispensary was opened in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

in the second half of the 19th century. In some places the same need might be met by

friendly societies A friendly society (sometimes called a benefit society, mutual aid society, benevolent society, fraternal organization or ROSCA) is a mutual association for the purposes of insurance, pensions, savings or cooperative banking. It is a mutual org ...

organised by the members themselves. Provident dispensaries, on the other hand, were usually set up by prosperous well-wishers and/or by a doctor, as

Sophia Jex-Blake Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake (21 January 1840 – 7 January 1912) was an English physician, teacher and feminist. She led the campaign to secure women access to a University education when she and six other women, collectively known as the Edi ...

did in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

, with support from a committee.

References

{{reflist Clinics Types of health care facilities

Provident dispensary

History

See also

References