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25
HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION FOR FEVER PATIENTS.
In consequence of the enormous amount of fever prevalent in
London during the summer of 1893, the hospital accommodation at
the disposal of the Managers of the Asylums Board was found to be
quite inadequate for the wants of the Metropolis. Besides this want
of accommodation there was in Hackney a great lack of discrimination
as to the cases received into the Board's Hospitals. That is to say,
the preference was not always given to cases occurring in over-crowded
or densely populated districts or to those mostly in need of medical
attendance. Preference ought, in my opinion, where the hospital
accommodation is limited, to be given to such cases as these ; if this
were done the spread of infectious disease would, I am certain, be
much lessened. The Board's officials labour under one disadvantage,
that they cannot know the social conditions and surroundings of
patients at the time application is made for their removal; but after
notification, their surroundings are enquired into, and the possibility or
otherwise of isolation and attendance at home, ascertained by the
Medical Officer of Health of the district. I think therefore the
Managers of the Asylums Board, in the interest of the Public Health,
should give precedence to such cases as the Medical Officer of Health
of the district considers most urgent.
On this subject letters were received from the Managers of the
Asylums Board and the Marylebone Vestry, which formed the subject
of the following report, presented to the Hackney Board of Works.
HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION FOR FEVER PATIENTS.
Your Committee have to report the receipt of letters from the Managers
of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, dated 18th and 21st ultimo, on the
subject of hospital accommodation for fever patients, stating that as the
accommodation at the Managers' disposal will shortly become exhausted, and
in consequence of the difficulty experienced in providing suitable sites for
hospitals, they have thought it desirable to give this Board notice of the
probability of their being called upon to make provision for their own
infectious sick. They further express the hope that instructions may be
issued to the officers concerned for preference being given to the removal
to the Asylums Board's Hospitals of those patients who, as a consequence of
their surroundings and conditions of life are most in need of hospital
treatment.