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90
The Annual Report of the Chairman.—Sir E. H.
Galsworthy commences his report, which is for the official year ended
March 25th, 1894, by stating that the fears entertained in the Spring
of 1893, that the accommodation in the Fever Hospitals of the
Managers would again prove insufficient to meet the usual autumnal
increase of scarlet fever, were but too well founded ; so that, for the
second time in the history of the Board, the Managers were compelled,
for some months, to limit the admission of patients to the
vacancies caused by discharges and deaths. The task of coping with
this seasonal increase of fever was even more difficult in the period
under review than in the preceding twelve months, inasmuch as
the accommodation at the Managers' disposal was decreased, during
1893, to the extent of 1,000 beds,* by the demolition of certain temporary
buildings, by the reduction in the number of beds at some of
the hospitals, under medical advice, and by the inability to make use
of the Upper Hospital at Gore Farm, in consequence of its being required
for small-pox.
Fever Hospital Accommodation.—The decrease above referred to,
was to some extent met, but not until towards the end of the year, by
the erection of the Fountain (temporary) Hospital at Tooting
Graveney, for 400 patients. It has been computed that,had sufficient
accommodation existed when scarlet fever was at the maximum, as
many as 6,000 patients, or almost double the actual number, would
not improbably have been under treatment at one and the same time.
It is satisfactory to learn that the scheme propounded by the General
Purposes Committee, in January, 1893 (and of which I gave an
account in my last annual report), whereby it was proposed to largely
increase the Fever Hospital accommodation, is now in a fair way to
realisation; and that by the erection of "acute hospitals," on sites
already secured, and of one or more convalescent hospitals on a site
or sites yet to be acquired. "there will, at no distant date, exist
accommodation for about 5,500 beds in the Fever Hospitals of the
* There are here and there in the several reports slight discrepancies in figures
which are left as found. Thus in regard to the loss of beds referred to in
the Chairman's report, the Ambulance Committee more precisely give the exact
number as 1,179.