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hospital, that I do not see any reason why these
projects should, be mutually exclusive.
The need of a children's hospital in Bermondsey of, say,
fifty beds with a suitable out-patients' department, can
hardly be disputed. Shadwell Hospital is on the north side
of the river, Evelina Hospital is a considerable distance away
in Southwark, and Guy's Hospital has only one small ward
of six beds devoted to children. If any sudden accident,
therefore, or illness occurs to a poor child in Bermondsey,
the mother will have to take it a long way to one of the
special children's hospitals, or else go up and wait at Guy's
Hospital, and should the child be seriously ill it will be taken
in and placed in one of the general wards of the hospital.
How convenient it would be if the mother was able to take
it to a local hospital, where it would be immediately attended
to, and taken in if seriously ill.
Now the two great difficulties which would have to be
faced are the initial outlay, and the subsequent maintenance,
but neither of these I contend is insuperable.
In Jamaica Road there is a military hospital known as
the Princess Club Hospital for Wounded Soldiers, which
has at present 92 beds, and this hospital will be abandoned
very shortly for lack of patients. During the years this
hospital has been in use, about 2,300 sick and wounded
men have been nursed there, and as there was an undertaking
that preference should be given to men from Bermondsey
and Rotherhithe whenever possible, a large proportion
of men have belonged to these two places. Owing
to the excellent treatment they received in this hospital all
the men were extremely sorry to leave it, and I do not
think there could be any more suitable memorial or one
which would better please the Bermondsey men when they
return from the Army, than to know that we are going to
care for their children. Many thousands have been spent
on this hospital by the War Office, and the portions of the
building where the soldiers were treated are quite new and
up-to-date. There is a large ward on the ground floor, which
could be converted into an out-patients' department, with
special departments for treatment of eyes, ears and throats,