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45
additional steamer provision " is as yet undecided. A former
Chief Engineer in the Royal Navy has been appointed to
superintend the River Ambulance Service. The medical and
nursing arrangements have been placed under the control of the
Hospital Ships' Committee. The control of the Land Ambulance
Service was not placed in the hands of the Committee until the
25tli March in the current year, but it appears that during the
years 1884-5 there were 32,195 removals of Fever and Small-pox
patients by the Ambulances attached to the several Stations.
The West Wharf at Fulham, near Wandsworth Bridge, at
which Kensington Small-pox cases will embark for the voyage to
Long Reach, is not yet completed, but arrangements for construction
of river wall, pier, receiving house, entrance lodge, etc., have been
made, and it is probable that the establishment will be in working
order before the next epidemic. As already intimated, the Managers
have arranged for the medical treatment of the sick from the
instant of embarcation. Every patient, it may be added, is
removed from home to the Wharf in charge of a skilled nurse,
amply provided with restoratives for use en route.
REMOVAL OF THE INFECTIOUS SICK.
Thanks to the Board of Guardians, we experience no difficulty
in obtaining removal of infectious cases to the Hospitals of the
Asylums Board. The Guardians, moreover, recognising the
importance of isolation, and the hindrance likely to arise from
attempt to make people pay for "relief" in hospitals, to which they
often go, reluctantly, for the benefit of the community, directed
the Relieving Officers, in 1880, not to apply for payment in respect
thereof. The happiest results followed the carrying out of
these directions, the value of which was augmented by the
passing, in 1883, of the Diseases Prevention (Metropolis) Act,
by which such relief was depauperised.
It is well known that, ever since 1866, the Sanitary Authorities
have had power, singly or in combination, to provide hospitals
"for the use of the sick inhabitants" of their several districts,