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59
The experience of 1887 accentuates the necessity for additional
accommodation as recommended by the Commission, and the
matter should be taken in hand while the temporary huts
remain. The outlay incurred in erecting these huts was almost
sufficient to defray the cost of a brick hospital.
WESTERN (FULHAM) HOSPITAL.
In February, 1888, the General Purposes Committee of the
Asylums Board were instructed to consider and report to the
Managers as to how far it may be practicable to increase the
accommodation for fever patients at the several Hospitals, and
at the meeting of the Managers on the 21st April, the Committee
submitted a Memorandum, received from the Western Hospital
Committee respecting the necessity of providing further
accommodation for fever patients at that Hospital— a course
which would involve the acquisition of additional laud, as no
more accommodation can be provided on the existing site.
The Hospital contains at present only 252 beds, and the experience
gained during the prevalence of scarlatina in 1887 shows
that it is not large enough to receive all the cases arising in the
districts allotted to it, inasmuch as, after the Hospital was filled,
cases to the number of 355 that should have been admitted, had
to be taken to other Hospitals—a course which necessarily
occasioned great loss of time and waste of labour, as well as an
increased expense to the Ambulance Department. The administration
of the Hospital is very expensive pro rata with the
number of patients: the present staff, with a few additional
nurses and other subordinate officers, would be sufficient for a
Hospital twice the size. Therefore, and taking into account the
large and increasing population of the district, as well as the
increasing use made of the hospitals, the Committee considered
it advisable to add considerably to the existing accommodation,
and they submitted that beds should be provided for at least 400
fever cases, irrespective of those to be allotted to small-pox. The