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3. As we are of opinion that harm resulted from the abrupt
transition from hospital to home conditions undergone by
patients immediately on discharge, we recommend that
every endeavour should be made to prepare patients for
this change, especially by providing facilities for their
being in the open air. At some of the hospitals this
will involve the erection of verandahs or other form of
shelter.
4. That the following notice be printed and a copy sent with
the notice of discharge to the parent or guardian of
every discharged Scarlet Fever patient:—
"Although every endeavour is made to send out
patients free from infection, it is advisable, as
an additional precaution, that they should, as
far as possible, be kept away from other children,
including attendance at school, for the
first three weeks after their return home. They
should certainly not sleep in the same bed, and,
if possible, not in the same room with children
who have not had the disease.
"It is also advisable that articles used by the
patients, such as cups, plates, spoons, handkerchiefs,
towels and toys, should, during this
period, be kept distinct from those used by
other children.
"The above precautions are specially important in
the case of those patients suffering from discharge
from either nose or ears."
5. That at one hospital, say the South-Eastern, now in course
of rebuilding, two or more wards be divided by glass
partitions into separate rooms, and that Scarlet Fever
patients be treated therein on the system of complete
isolation during the whole period of detention, so far as
that may be found practicable, and that the effect of this
procedure on the occurrence of "return cases" should
be carefully observed.
6. That similar rooms be erected at two other Acute
Hospitals in which Scarlet Fever patients may be
isolated for at least three weeks after admission. The
patients being afterwards drafted into convalescent
wards, the complicated and uncomplicated cases being
kept separate. The structural arrangements of the