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17
The Metropolitan Asylum District,
37, Norfolk Street, Strand, London, W.C.,
Dear Sir, December 14.th, 1880.
In reply to the enquiries contained in your letter of the 11th inst., I beg to state
that the Managers in March last forwarded to the Local Government Board a synopsis
of replies received from the Metropolitan Sanitary Authorities on the subject of clause 15
of the "Poor Law Act, 1879," with a request that the Board would be good enough to
furnish the Managers with any observations which they might have to offer on the
subject; but that the Managers have not as yet received any communication from the
Local Government Board with regard thereto.
I am, Dear Sir, yours faithfully,
HobertVoss, Esq., W. F. JEBB, Clerk.
Clerk to the Vestry, Betlmnl Green.
Such was the stage of affairs at the end of the year 1880, and though
the further proceedings do not come within the period for which this
report is drawn, I may as well shortly state what was done.
The matter was still under discussion when the epidemic assumed such
proportions that all the Asylums' Board Hospitals were filled, and large
numbers of cases, willing to have gone into hospital, were compelled to
remain at home, as there was no room for them.
The authorities of the Highgate Small Pox Hospital had been previously
communicated with, but they declined to allot a fixed number of beds.
They agreed to admit cases on account of the vestry, provided there was
sufficient room, but would not take in young children. The charge for
each case was to be four guineas.
I then drew up and presented a report to the Vestry, which it is
needless to reproduce here. My advice was, either to provide an hospital
of our own, by converting some existing building, or by erecting a new one,
or else to enter into negotiations with the Poplar Board of Works with a
view to the occupation of some portion of their unused hospital for
infectious diseases at West Ham. The Poplar Board were communicated
with. They were willing to furnish a wing of the hospital, if one other
parish besides Bethnal Green would join in the scheme. Ultimately the
Vestries of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, and St. Luke's, and the Guardians
of Poplar and the City of London Unions, joined the Poplar District Board
of Works. A wing was furnished, administrative staff provided, and ten
beds were placed at our disposal, at a cost to this Yestry of £120 pounds
per annum dead rental, and a further sum of four guineas for each case
sent; this payment to include maintenance and medical attendance so long
as the patient remained in the hospital.