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131
SMALL-POX HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION.
The Royal Commission in 1882, in one of their " practical
recommendations," advised that provision should be made of
sites and buildings which could without difficulty be made
capable of receiving 2,100, or by special exertion 2,700 smallpox
patients. At the date of my last report the actually
existing accommodation fell far short of the lesser of these
totals, comprising some 300 beds at the Hospital Ships at
Long Reach and 800 beds at the Gore Farm Estate, Darenth,
viz., 600 beds for convalescing patients at the Upper Hospital,
and 200 beds for acute and relapsed cases in the associated
Infirmary known as the Lower Hospital. The administrative
block of the Upper Hospital was designed to meet the requirements
of 1000 patients, and in June, 1893, the Managers
decided to complete this hospital by the addition of 400 beds,
in eight pavilions each capable of accommodating 50 patients,
together with the necessary staff accommodation, laundry,
and also some small wards for isolation purposes. These
works, for which a tender at about £27,000 was accepted, are
now approaching completion. The Managers subsequently
(February 3rd, 1894) adopted a recommendation contained
in a report of the Small-pox Hospitals Committee, for acquiring
an estate near Long Reach, as a site for a land-hospital
for acute cases of small-pox. The Committee's report had
been made on a reference by the Board (8th May, 1893) to
consider and report, whether " it is possible and desirable to
acquire land adjacent to the Small-pox Hospitals, and if so,
to what extent and in what mannerand also on a previous
instruction to consider, whether it was desirable "to acquire
land on the river-side suitable for the erection of a Small-pox
Hospital." The Committee in their report, dated 19th January,
stated that, even before these references were made to them,
they had been devoting their attention to the question how
far the small-pox accommodation at the Managers' disposal
is adequate to the demands that are likely to be made on it