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46
SMALL-POX HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION.
The Royal Commission (of 1882), in one of their "practical
recommendations," proposed that provision should be made of
sites and buildings which could without difficulty be made capable
of receiving 2100, or by special exertion, 2700 small-pox
patients. The actual accommodation falls very far below the
smaller of these totals, consisting as it does of some 350 beds
at the hospital ships, a few beds at three of the London hospitals,
(beds for exceptional patients, and which the Asylums Board will
not suffer to be occupied except in case of urgent necessity), and
800 beds at Darenth. Total, say, 1200 beds. But it must be
borne in mind that the Managers' Estate at Darenth is always
available upon emergency tor the erection of huts, tents, &c.,
equal to any probable demand for accommodation. It may be
hoped, moreover, that as the Managers now remove every smallpox
patient out of London, whose removal can be effected with
Safety—and, happily, this is usually the case—hospital accommodation
in the future will not be required to the amount provided
during former epidemics.
The Goee Farm Hospital, for Convalescing Small-pox
Patients, which the Managers decided, December, 1887, to
erect on their estate at Darenth, is now completed. The
buildings of the two Small-pox Camps which, with tents, served
for the last epidemic, have now been consolidated into an infirmary
on the site of the South Camp, which will accommodate
200 acute cases, with the requisite female staff. The new
hospital, on the higher ground, provides accommodation for
600 convalescing patients in two groups, viz., males, 250;
females and children, 350. The-administrative block is capable
of service for 1000 patients. The whole estate is enclosed, and
the two areas for patients' outdoor recreation are defined by iron
fencing which is described as unclimbable. The expenditure incurred
to date, exclusive of the cost of the site, viz., in building
and adaptations, has been about £64,000.