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126
their particular interest, of a veto given to the Board in order
that it might be exercised in the interest of the district as a
whole. The letter concluded with an assurance that the
Managers would endeavour to find other sites, both for acute
and convalescent hospitals, and they asked the Board to " give
the promptest possible consideration to the proposals (then)
before them as to the Tottenham and Hither Green sites, and
to the further proposals which it will be the duty of the
Managers to lay before them for approval."
At the following meeting of the Managers (May 27th),
references were made to the " intolerable delays " in respect
to matters required to be referred by the Managers to the
Local Government Board,and regard being had to the difficulties
in which the Managers were placed, by reason of their inability
to obtain the necessary sanction for the acquisition of sites for
hospitals, it was proposed to "inform the several Sanitary
Authorities that, in view of the limited accommodation at
their disposal, the Managers would only be able for the
present to admit scarlet fever and diphtheria patients when
they were provided with an order from the Relieving Officer;"
in other words to admit paupers only. The Chairman, however,
would not accept this proposal, " inasmuch as it would
involve a reversal of the policy of the Board for many years " ;
but it was decided that a circular should be sent to the
several Medical Officers of Health with a view to their
selecting the most necessitous cases for admission to the
various hospitals, a course which I did not hesitate to
declare impracticable.
I felt it my duty to enter fully into this important
question of hospital accommodation (in my fifth monthly
report, dated May 29th), for the information of your Vestry
as one of the Sanitary Authorities who had received an
intimation that they might be called upon soon to make
provision, locally, for their infectious sick. But I did not