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Illness of Members of the Staff.—Charge-nurse Firth,
Assistant-nurse Barker, and Ward-maid Emery, all suffered
at different dates from scarlet fever, probably contracted in
the exercise of their duties. Charge-nurse Wilson also
contracted diphtheria and was removed to one of the
Asylum Board Hospitals.
Dr. Blaxall was incapacitated for duty from an illness
for about 10 days, and the Medical Officer of Health during
that time undertook both the duties of Superintendent and
resident Medical Officer.
With these exceptions the health of the staff was
uniformly good.
Religious Services in the Hospital.—The chairman (Mr.
Hopkins) thought that as there were so many patients
there should be opportunities afforded to any of them, should
they so desire it, of the religious services of ministers of the
denomination they belonged to. Accordingly an enquiry
was made of the patients as to the place of worship they or
their parents usually attended; the majority were found
to belong to the Church of England, a few were Roman
Catholics, and a few Nonconformists. Canon Leigh volunteered
to attend regularly at the Hospital and did so
for a short time, but the Committee of an Institution
to which Canon Leigh was at that time chaplain, strongly
objected, on the ground that infection might be conveyed to
that establishment, and therefore Canon Leigh resigned.
The Rev. Carter took Canon Leigh's place, and altogether
some six Sunday services were held there.
Attacks on the Hospital Administration.—In October,
an anonymous letter appeared in the Mercury, attacking
the administration of the Hospital, and this was soon
followed by a number of wild charges in the local press,
and also in one of the evening papers. Some of the
parents who had been unfortunate enough to lose one or more
children in the Hospital, and others, joined in the outcry.
Added, therefore, to the onerous duties of the ordinary
work of administration, the Management Committee and
the chief Officers had their attention distracted from their
official duties by having to frame long statements of facts