View report page

45.
sick children, as required, and, in addition, a separate small
Isolation Hospital for the treatment of infectious casts as they
occur. The arrangements made by the Guardians are, therefore,
exemplary in theory, but I find that the uses to which these
various buildings have been put, works out in practice unsatisfactorily.
It is true that children have been admitted at the
Receiving Wards, and drafted from there to the Probation Wards
for a period of three weeks, prior to being admitted into the
Main Building, but it is also true that the children in the
Probation Wards have been allowed to go to the Board Schools in
the Norwood and Croydon Districts, and whilst there to mix, not
only with the Guardians' children from the Main Building, but
also with other children from various parts of such districts. It
seems anomalous that the Guardians should have arranged for
Probation Wards with most praiseworthy intentions, but that the
use of such Probation Wards should have been stultified by the
fact that the children detail ed there have been allowed to mix
with the children from the Main Building, both outside and inside
the Guardians' premises—outside as already explained; inside, in
the Church, situated within the Guardians' own premises, where
children from the Receiving and Probation Wards attend with
children from the Main Building for religious instruction and other
purposes. Such an arrangement is thwart with danger, as by this
means Measles (and what applies toMeasles applies to other infectious
diseases) has been allowed to spread from the Probation Wards to
the Main Buildings, and so the whole object of such Probation
Wards has been lost. The idea of children from the Probation
Wards joining children from the Main Buildings immediately outside
the Guardians' premises, mixing with them going to school,
at school, and coming back from school, being carefully separated
and isolated afterwards when they arrive within the Guardians'
premises would be amusing if such serious results had not
obtained ! As showing how the Measles has spread, it is interesting
to note, from the returns furnished to me, by the Head Nurse
through Dr. Rugg, that, of the 68 cases that have occurred, 43
arose amongst children in the Main Buildings and 25 amongst
children in the Infirmary, Probation Wards, and Receiving Wards.
The Infirmary has helped to spread the disease. From the Inner
Wards of the Borough of Lambeth, the Measles germs are passed
into the Lambeth Schools at Norwood, first into the Receiving
Wards, then into the Probation Wards, Infirmary, and Main
Buildings, and so on from there to through the Board Schools
into the Norwood and Croydon districts. No inter-communication
whatever should be allowed to take place between the
Infirmary and the Isolation Hospital, or between any neighbouring
buildings which have been specially planned to avoid such.
The disinfecting machine is old, inefficient and out of date.