Discharge Register

Full description

Discharge Register

Within twenty-four hours after the discharge, removal or escape of any patient the clerk of the asylum was to make and sign an entry to record this occurrence in the Discharge Register also known as the Register of Discharges, Removals and Deaths. This was required under the provisions of section 23 of the Lunacy Statute 1867. Subsequent legislation included similar provisions. An entry was also to be made in the Register of Patients and a written notice was to be sent to the Chief Secretary.

The format of the Discharge Register was specified in the seventeenth schedule of the 1867 Act and in schedules to subsequent legislation. Details recorded included date of death, discharge or removal, date of last admission, number in Register of Patients, name at length, name of hospital to which patient removed (if applicable), condition on discharge, cause of death (if applicable) and age at death. The entries are arranged chronologically by date of discharge.

Sunbury Discharge Register

There is an alphabetical index at the beginning of each volume.

A discharge number was recorded for each patient. Separate sequences were maintained for males and females. The range of discharge numbers is noted on the spine of the first and second units of the series. The remaining volumes do not have this information.

The first nine pages of the first unit list discharges from the Ballarat Asylum. Sunbury entries begin on Page 11 with new Discharge numbers being issued.

In the second unit the admission number is also recorded. The allocation of discharge numbers was discontinued for a period and then the practice was reintroduced and continued seemingly without a break.