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83
HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION.
In the Annual Report for 1893 (pages 117 to 130 inclusive),
I dealt with "the needs of the Metropolis in respect of
hospital accommodation for the infectious sick," and detailed
the steps taken by the Asylums Board to supply the then
existing deficiencies, and the difficulties by which their efforts
had been confronted and, to a certain extent, foiled. Those
difficulties have now been largely overcome; and the needs of
the Metropolis, in this regard, which are now fully recognised,
will ere long be met to the full extent of and, indeed, beyond
the estimate of them made in my tenth monthly report for
1892, which, at the time, was thought to be excessive, viz.:
of "at least 5,000 beds for scarlet fever, fever, diphtheria, and
isolation."
Fever Hospital Accommodation.—It is an accepted
axiom that provision for the isolation of infectious disease
should be at the rate of not less than one bed for each
thousand of the population. The subject, as regards the
Metropolis, was considered by the Royal Commission in
1881-82, and the Commissioners stated in their report (1882)
that the then provision of hospitals should be extended so as
to provide 5,700 beds at the least; viz.: 3,000 nominally for
"Fever," and 2,700 for Small-pox. Diphtheria cases were not
at that time admissible to the hospitals. The population of
London in 1882 was a little under 4,000,000. Consequently,
the recommendation of the Commissioners went, to the extent
of 1,700 beds, beyond the theoretical requirements of the day.
The Commissioners, doubtless, intended to make provision for
a lengthened period in advance, and the amount of accommodation
they advised to be provided is even now ahead of
the standard requirement. But circumstances have since
arisen that they could scarcely have anticipated, and which
have led to largely increased demands on the Managers
resources; not only by the Sanitary Authorities, but also by