Money appropriated by a governing body and distributed and paid to any hospital by virtue of section 44:5-11 of this Title, shall, if there is more than one such hospital, be distributed among and paid to them upon the basis of the free ward day's treatment furnished by each of them for the benefit, comfort and maintenance of such patients, inmates therein, or in the case of clinics, by the number of individual treatments of patients, as are residents of the county at the time of being sent to that hospital, and not otherwise.
"Free ward day's treatment," as used in this section, means not less than 24 hours' medical and nursing attention of a hospital patient who occupies a listed hospital bed in the public ward for at least 24 hours continuously and for which nothing is paid. Free ward day's treatment shall not include treatment given to a person who would not commonly be admitted to or maintained in the public or contagious wards of general hospitals.