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30
Metropolitan Asylums Board.
REPORT of the General Purposes Committee submitted to the Board at
their meeting on the 28th November, 1903.
23rd November, 1903.
Proposed establishment of sanatoria for consumptives.—At the meeting of
the Board on the 26th July, 1902, we were instructed to consider and report
(in connection with other letters previously received on the same subject'
upon a letter, dated 12th July, 1902, which the Bermondsey Borough Council
had addressed to the Board, and in which they advocated the establishment
by the Managers of sanatoria for the treatment of consumptive persons.
When we discussed this matter at our meeting on the 24th November, 1902
and decided to defer consideration of the question for twelve months, we were
informed that from the replies then received by the Bermondsey Borough
Council from the other Metropolitan Borough Councils, it appeared that of the
26 Councils who had been asked to support the action taken by Bermondsey
10 approved of the suggestion that the Managers should provide sanatoria for
the purpose proposed, 5 approved of the principle of the need for open-air
treatment of consumptives, but were not agreed as to who should be the
authority for giving effect to the same, whilst the remaining 11 Councils had
either taken no action in the matter or were not at the time in favour of the
proposal. Since November, 1902, further letters on the subject have been
received from most of the other Borough Councils and also from certain of
the Boards of Guardians of the Metropolis, the following brief synopsis giving
the purport of the communications received up to date, viz.:-
The Westminster City Council and the Borough Councils of
Battersea, Bermondsey, Chelsea, Fulham, Hackney, Kensington,
Poplar, St. Marylebone, St. Pancras, Shoreditch, Stepney, and
Woolwich, together with the Guardians of the Poor of Chelsea,
Holborn, Paddington, Poplar, and Wandsworth and Clapham, approve
of the proposal.
The Borough Council of Finsbury approve of the principle, but are
unable to form an opinion as to the authority who should administer the
proposed sanatoria.
The Borough Council of Stoke Newington agree to the proposal, but
think that the cases treated should be limited to those in which it is
necessary to prevent the exposure of others to serious risks of infection.
From the replies received, through the Bermondsey Borough
Council, it would appear that the remaining Borough Councils of the
Metropolis have decided as follows:—