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80
River Service.—There are four ambulance steamboats
"Red Cross," "Maltese Cross," "Albert Victor," and "Geneva
Cross" A steam pinnace, "White Cross," added to the fleet
in 1896, was built for the sum of £1,888. The distance run
collectively by the steamers was 10,333 miles, and they conveyed
2,399 patients and other passengers, besides 76 tons of
stores, &c., to and from the Hospital Ships at Long Reach.
Provision is being made of a Shelter, with six beds, at the
South Wharf, Rotherhithe, for small-pox patients who may
arrive at the Wharf too late at night for immediate transfer
to the Ships: the Managers will thus be able, on many
occasions, to dispense with the use of the ambulance steamboats
at night.
Cost.—The total payments made during the year were,
for the four stations (Eastern, South-Eastern, Western, and
Brook) £16,211 10s. 9d., including £4,289 9s. 5d. for the
Western Station. The River Service cost £9,942 19s. 10d.,
including £1,248 13s. 4d. in the Medical Department. The
expenditure on Loan Account was £23,064 3s. l0d. The
estimated cost of the services of the Nurses, "fairly represented
by a fixed charge of 2s. 6d. per journey," was £3,091 10s.
The nurses for fever purposes were drawn from the hospitals
adjacent to the stations, those for small-pox purposes, partly
from the stall of the Ships, and partly from the London
hospitals. Elaborate statistical tables complete the report.
The foregoing abstract of the report of the Ambulance
Committee suffices to show that the important duty of removing
the sick to hospital, whether by land or water,
is now effected in an unexceptionable manner. In a
former report I had to observe that this remark was
applicable only in respect of patients in course of
transit to or from the Managers' hospitals. It was often
quite otherwise in respect of private patients, who were, but
too frequently, removed in public vehicles, cabs, &c. The law
did not forbid the use of a public vehicle, provided that the