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Convalescent Home for Mothers and Babies, Birchington.
Alexandra Hospital, for surgical
Royal Sea Bathing Hospital, Margate, Tuberculosis.
Stoke Park Colony.
Brentry Colony and other institutions under the M.D. Acts.
Royal Albert Dock Hospital and various hospitals under the
V.D. Scheme.
In addition to the above-named residential institutions, there
are in the Borough some twenty clinics, including clinics for tuberculosis,
for artificial sunlight, for massage—as well as special
schools for crippled children, etc. Formidable though this list
appears, it is incomplete, inasmuch as it does not include many institutions
to which patients are sent intermittently through the
Public Health Department, e.g., London Hospital, Brookfield
Orthopaedic Hospital, St. Margaret's Hospital for the Blind,
Great Ormond Street Hospital, and various convalescent homes.
Schemes already passed by the Council, but not yet functioning,
include:—
(1) A colony to be built at Ockendon, Essex, to accommodate
seven hundred and fifty mental defectives of various grades.
(2) The extension of hospital accommodation at Harold
Wood, Essex, for infectious disease.
(3) The extension of Fyfield Residential Open-air School to
accommodate sixty delicate girls, in addition to the eighty boys
already resident there. (This building is now complete.)
(4) The erection of two nursery schools, one at Abbey
Road and one at Rosetta Road, each school to accommodate 120
children.
(5) The erection of three additional maternity and child
welfare clinics, including dental clinics.
In dealing with such a large and varied number of institutions,
some well-ordered method obviously is essential. At present
cases are admitted to institutions and returns made to me
through the various sub-departments, e.g., Tuberculosis, Infectious
Diseases, School Medical and Maternity and Child Welfare.
No arrangement for admissions or periodical returns have hitherto
been in force between the institutions of the Poor Law Guardians
and the Public Health Department, with the inevitable result that
a not inconsiderable amount of overlapping has occurred, inasmuch
as a large percentage of the cases of illness in the Borough
are treated in these Poor Law institutions.
Under the new Act I am confident that this overlapping will
disappear, and also that more valuable use will be able to be made
of some of the existing facilities. The agreement with the County
of Essex and with the County Borough of East Ham specify that
cases which are sent from those Authorities for admission to West
Ham institutions need not necessarily be treated in any one particular
institution.
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