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78
Joyce Green Estate.—On this estate the Managers
proposed to provide beds for 940 patients, but the Local
Government Board have so far refused to sanction provision
being made for more than 400 patients. Plans for the proposed
hospital for this number have been prepared and sanctioned.
Thus it appears that the Metropolis is endowed, in possession
or in early prospect, with accommodation for upwards
of 6,000 patients suffering from fever and diphtheria: a
number more than double that recommended by the Royal
Commission (3,000); irrespective of about 750 beds at Gore
Farm, generally available for convalescent cases in the
abeyance of small-pox. Time alone can determine whether
this provision will suffice for the requirements of the metropolis.
For small-pox patients the accommodation is, or will be, to
the extent of some 1,900 beds : a number, I repeat, considerably
below the recommendation of the Royal Commission (2,700);
but which I am sanguine will suffice, seeing how much more
effectually this disease has been controlled since the practice
of removing the sick out of London for isolation and treatment,
first done upon my advice in May, 1881, has been perfected
by the Managers, who, since 1884, have practically ceased to
use the town hospitals for the isolation of small-pox,
removing direct from their homes to the Ships all patients
suffering from this disease—with what beneficent results let
the statistics of mortality set out at page 27 testify.
The Park Hospital.—As elsewhere indicated, the
inability of the Asylums Board to receive all of the patients
whose admission was desired by sanitary authorities and
others, was removed in November when the Park Hospital
was opened, there having been, moreover, by that date, a considerable
diminution in the amount of scarlet fever and
diphtheria notified. The hospital in question is located at
Hither-green, in the district of Lewisham. Occupying a site
of twenty acres, this fine building—fine in essentials, for it is
devoid of external adornment—furnishes accommodation for a
total of 548 patients ; viz., for scarlet fever 368 beds, diphtheria