View report page

33
will be provided for 60 patients in two large wards of 24
beds each, and two small wards, or isolation rooms, of six
beds each, for the treatment of cases of erysipelas or other
complications occasionally attendant upon small-pox.
The permanent provision, already made or contemplated,
falls short of the requirements of the metropolis as
estimated by the Hospitals Commission, who were of
opinion that there should be sites and buildings which could
without difficulty be made capable of receiving 2,100, or by
special exertion 2,700, small-pox patients. The sites are
adequate in mere acreage, as on the land at Darenth any
necessary number of tents could be pitched on an emergency;
but the Local Government Board have judiciously suggested
for the consideration of the Managers the desirability of an
endeavour being made to secure an additional site, to the
west or south west of the metropolis, which would be
available for an additional hospital for convalescent smallpox
patients, in view of the exigencies of a serious epidemic,
and taking into account the necessities of London
as a whole.
Fever Hospital Accommodation. The Commission
were of opinion that there should be sites and buildings
which could be made capable of receiving 8,000 fever patients.
" Of the 3,000 cases those in the earlier stages, probably
about half, should be provided for in the near neighbourhood
of London; the other half—the convalescents—in two or three
country hospitals." The beds now available for treatment of
fever cases at the five existing hospitals are about 1,050, the
recommendation of the Commission, that these hospitals
should " become in the main fever hospitals," having been
carried into effect. These hospitals the Commission thought
it probable would, "with the aid of another hospital which
appears to be indispensable for the east of London,
fully accommodate all the cases requiring London treatment."
The Managers resolved in the first instance to give effect
to the recommendation to provide another hospital for the