View report page

72
patients number 119,850, without including the conveyance
of visitors to patients, staff, &c. These removals," the Committee
say, '' have been carried out in all weathers, and throughout all
seasons of the year, and, to a great extent, during the night, without
detriment to the patients, and without serious accident or mishap to
any person''—a truly magnificent record.
The Committee state their views as to the necessity for
the provision of additional hospital accommodation, resulting
from "the vastly increased number of patients" now admitted
annually to the hospitals—a subject referred to in the Chairman's
annual report also {vide page 64). " The Eastern and Northwestern
Hospitals, at Homerton and Hampstead respectively, have
been found insufficient for the needs of the populations of the districts
they are intended to serve"—and a site is urgently needed for a hospital
in the north east district. The plan of making temporary provision by
placing more beds in wards, and by huts, &c., in cases of emergency,
is justly condemned as objectionable, both on medical and economical
grounds. The urgency of the case is illustrated by the fact that when
the Committee's report was drafted, at the middle of June, there
were nearly 900 more patients under treatment "than at any corresponding
time since the Managers' hospitals have been in existence."
The urgency, again, is all the greater seeing that the Local Government
Board object to the system of one hospital relieving another,
not deeming it right that any hospital should provide for the
population of any district save that allocated to it by the Managers.
The Committee urge on the Managers " the importance of
taking the necessary steps for securing a site for a Convalescent Fever
Hospital in some locality to the south of London," to supplement the
Northern Hospital at Winchmore Hill, in the north-east of London,
which provides at present only 480 beds.
Fever Statistics.—The total number of fever and diphtheria
patients under treatment during 1891, was 9,745, as compared with
10,123 in 1890. At the beginning of the year there were 1,936
patients under treatment in the seven hospitals then open The
numbers declined to the mimimum (1,050) on the 14th June, and
then rose, more or less rapidly, until the maximum (2,055) was