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82
RIVER AMBULANCE SERVICE.
The Managers possess in their three Ambulance steamers,
Bed Cross, Maltese Cross, and Albert Victor, together with the
steam pinnace Swallow and the steam launch Marguerite, a fleet
equal to all probable demands. The demands, however, as
indicated by number of admissions, are very unequal at different
periods of the year, and, of course, in different years.
REPORT 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
River 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 Reach. The Committee reported 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 "carried, in all weathers and
throughout all seasons of the year, and to a great extent during
the hours of darkness, without detriment to the patients, and
without accident or mishap to any person whatsoever." In
their second annual report, for 1886, the Ambulance Committee
again referred with justifiable satisfaction to the "entire
freedom from casualty involving personal injury, with which
the transport of patients, both by land and water, had been
accomplished." In consequence of the cessation of the smallpox
epidemic the number of patients removed during the year
"fell to 2,478, a figure which" (the Committee then thought)