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53
(Eastern, South-Eastem, and Eastern), under the provisions of
Section 16, Poor Law Act, 1879. Small-pox patients are taken
down the river in Ambulance Steamers, specially built or fitted
for the purpose, embarking at Wharves which the Managers
were authorised to provide by Section 6 of the Diseases Prevention
(Metropolis) Act, 1883. Kensington patients are removed by the
ambulance staff at the Western Station, where provision
has been made for 15 horses, coach-houses for as many
vehicles, together with all necessary accommodation for drivers,
nurses, etc. Between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., on week-days,
cases for removal are reported at the Managers' Central
Offices, these being in telephonic communication with the
Station. During the night, and on Sunday, application for a
patient's removal is forwarded direct to the Ambulance Station.
Erom a report made by the Committee for the Western Hospital,
we learn that the number of patients removed since the opening
of the Western Station in May, 1884, to the end of April, 1885,
amounted to 2,369. Owing to the great distance between the
Western Hospital and the districts allotted to it, and the South
(late Acorn) Wharf, at Botherhithe, to which the patients are at
present sent for embarcation, the number of miles travelled by
the ambulances is excessive. This will be obviated when the
West Wharf shall have been been brought into use.
BEPOBT OF THE AMBULANCE COMMITTEE.
Arrangements in connexion with the transit of the sick,
between home and hospital, and back again, are under the control
of a special Committee of the Asylums Board, whose first
report, issued in March, 1886, is of singular interest. As regards
Biver Ambulance Service, it appears that between 9th February,
1884, when patients were for the first time taken to the Hospital
Ships, and the close of 1885, some 11,060 were removed to Long
Beach. The Committee report with justifiable satisfaction that this
large number of persons “ of both sexes and all ages, for the most
part in physical suffering, and many helpless from disease,” were