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47
The Managers have accommodation (including temporary
additions to three of the hospitals) for 2,308 fever patients, and
for 350 small-pox patients on board the hospital ships. Sixtyfour
additional beds for fever patients at the Northern Hospital,
and 800 for small pox patients at Darenth, will shortly raise the
accommodation for infectious cases to the magnificent total of
3,522 beds.
Ambulance Arrangements.—No reference is made by the
Chairman to the correspondence with the Local Government
Board on the subject of the Managers' willingness to become
the Ambulance Authority for the removal of all cases of
infectious disease in the Metropolis. The delays of the Board
are difficult to understand. It is satisfactory, however, that in
the long run they usually concur in the forward movements, to
which, not seldom—as in this case—it has been my privilege
to point the way.*
I note with pleasure the absence from the Report of
strictures on the alleged shortcomings of the Vestries and
District Boards with respect to provision of Hospitals, &c., for
the infectious sick. Practically there is now a consensus of
opinion that the duty of providing Hospitals, Ambulances, &c.,
can be more efficiently and more economically performed by one
Central Sanitary Authority than by numerous Local Sanitary
Authorities.
THE STATISTICAL COMMITTEE'S ANNUAL
REPORT.
It may be stated that the Reports of the Medical Superintendents
of the several hospitals, etc., are now published together
under the direction of the Statistical Committee, whose own
*Reference to the work of the Ambulance Department will be found on page
52—in an abstract of the Annual Report of the Ambulance Committee.