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15
In this respect the Public Health Committee and the Hospital
have been fortunate in possessing the services of a chairman who
has a wide knowledge of Hospital administration.
Among the many improvements and additions to the Hospital
which have been effected during his period of office are the erection
of a large and modern administrative kitchen, the relaying of
the Hospital roadways, the installation of new machinery in the
laundry, the rebuilding of a portion of the laundry and the allocation
of a recreation room for members of the domestic staff.
In addition the difficulties, which the medical and nursing staff
are compelled to encounter and surmount in order to ensure
efficiency, have been recognised and a large number of essential
schemes have been introduced, discussed and forwarded; these
include the installation of a complete central heating system to
overcome the present woefully inadequate supply, and the provision
of more suitable and more adequate accommodation for the
nursing and domestic staff.
The following urgent matters, to which attention has been
drawn in previous reports, demand early and favourable consideration:—
1. The provision for increased accommodation for patients
in order to prevent overcrowding during epidemic
times. At the present time the area of the hospital
wards is insufficient to provide for the accommodation of
one patient per thousand of the population (146), unless
the standards laid down by the Ministry of Health be
ignored. (See Ministry of Health Report on Public
Health and Medical Subjects, No. 16.) The area of the
temporary and permanent buildings combined is only
sufficient to provide for 110 beds. Furthermore, the
temporary wards should be replaced by permanent buildings;
the army huts, which were erected as an emergency
expedient during an epidemic, are unsuitable for the
nursing of cases of acute infectious disease and are certainly
not the type of accommodation that would have
been provided had there been time for forethought and
deliberation.