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16
The Isolation Hospital, which the Council decided, in 1896,
to erect on the upper cemetery field in Gap Road, was completed
late in the year, the approximate cost for building and furnishing
being £21,000.
The patients were removed from the iron hospital in Durnsford
Road on December 4th.
The Hospital consists of 3 blocks, the Scarlet Fever ward
providing accommodation for 22 patients, the Diphtheria ward 12
patients, and the Typhoid Fever ward 4 patients, making a total
of 38 beds, with administrative block, laundry, disinfecting station,
coach-houses, porter's lodge, mortuary, and receiving and discharging
block.
In November of 1899, the Sanitary Committee considered the
advisability of extending the new Scarlet Fever block, or building
an additional one, owing to the fact that at that time, in the iron
hospital and a tent, there were 35 Scarlet Fever patients, being 13
in excess of the number of beds provided in the new hospital.
After consideration a resolution was passed "That the question
of additional ward accommodation be deferred until the completion
of the Hospital."
There is sufficient space on the site to admit of ample extensions,
and this will undoubtedly be required at no distant date.
When in the future any extensions or alterations are to be
made, the advisability should be considered of erecting a small
isolation or quarantine block, in which cases of a doubtful character
can be kept for a period under observation, without being put
into one of the infected wards. Such building might be the
means of preventing the introduction of infectious diseases, such
as Measles, Whooping Cough, etc., into the wards.
The following is the scale of fees payable for the maintenance
of patients in the Hospital:—