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25
AMBULANCE FACILITIES.
(1) For Infectious Diseases.
The Local Authority maintain a motor ambulance for the removal of cases
of scarlet fever, diphtheria and enteric fever to the Joint Enfield and Edmonton
Isolation Hospital, a distance of three miles. A horse ambulance is in readiness
in case of trouble with the motor, and has had to be requisitioned fairly frequently
during the year. The Council at the time of writing (March) are inviting
tenders for a new ambulance.
The Council also provide a motor bus capable of holding six persons'
and this serves a double purpose: (1) to carry parents from the Town Hall to
the Hospital when the child is fit to be discharged, and to take both back to
the home; and (2) to take up parents or relatives when patients are on the
dangerously ill list and are asked by the Medical Superintendent to visit.
After office hours at night, for example, the services of a motor lorry from
the Fire Station can be obtained for this latter purpose.
Enfield maintains its own horse ambulance for the removal of infectious
cases to the hospital. A good working arrangement would be to have two
ambulances, and house both them and the drivers at the Isolation Hospital,
and thus undertake the removal of patients from the two districts directly from
the hospital.
2. For Non-Infectious and Accident Cases.
Previous to June, 1921, a horsed-ambulance, housed at the Fire Station,
was used for the above. Since that time, it has been replaced by a motor
ambulance, subscribed for by residents during the war and used by the V.A.D.
until 1920.
The Superintendent of the Fire Brigade gives me the following information:
Total number of removals for the year, this including 36
accident cases 510
Number of journeys to the Isolation Hospital—visits
to urgent cases 30
Distance covered for the year in miles 4,267
The cost of the motor ambulance for the last six months,
exclusive of wages, housing and cleaning material £221
Of which the Expenditure on Petrol and Grease £48 15s.