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of 22 beds. Improvements are projected at this hospital by
providing sufficient accommodation for the staff, by making a new
Labour Ward, which will be easy of access, by installing new hot
water and heating arrangements and by overhauling and extending
the laundry. In these extensions or improvements the possibility
of adding to the bed accommodation to meet future needs
has been kept in mind.
(5) Hospital Provision for Children.—At the King Edward
Hospital there is a Children's Ward of 12 beds, where children
under 5 years of age can be referred for treatment from the Health
Centres. There is also a small Children's Ward of three beds at
the Hanwell Cottage Hospital.
(6) Other Hospitals.—To meet the general medical and surgical
needs of the Borough there is the King Edward Memorial Hospital,
situated at Mattock Lane, which has 94 beds, including eight
private wards of one bed each, in addition to the Children's Ward
of 12 beds already mentioned. The West Middlesex Hospital,
situated at Isleworth, is the Poor Law Hospital of the Brentford
Board of Guardians of whose area Ealing forms a part. Although
there still exists a prejudice against this hospital because it is a
Poor Law Hospital, the people are beginning to get over this to
some extent and to recognise that they have for their use a hospital
which is well equipped and well managed and in which they can
receive every care and attention. There is a definite call, however,
for the more extended use of this hospital by the people living in
the area served, but this call cannot be answered until the Ministry
of Health relax their restrictions with regard to the class of the
community who may take advantage of it or until the law determines
the policy which has to be pursued in adapting the use of the poor
law hospitals throughout the country to the needs of the general
community. The promise of new legislation seems to hang like a
cloud over these hospitals, to preserve the prejudice against them
and prevent their development and full utilisation. As it is, there
is duplication of hospital provision, with the general hospitals
providing for all the community, and the poor law hospitals for the
restricted class of the necessitous poor who unfortunately are so
strictly defined in law. We hear of schemes and modified schemes
for dealing with the whole problem, but the time has come for a
bold move which will result in establishing our hospitals on a proper