View report page

41
In 1907 the building was re-drained and
enlarged to provide 21 beds at a cost of £768.
The Hospital was erected and maintained to
take in cases of sickness and accidents from the
districts of Surbiton, now including Hook, Southborough
and Tolworth, together with Long Ditton,
Chessington and that isolated portion of Old
Maiden Parish, situate on the Leatherhead Road
beyond Chessington known as Maiden Rushett
and which at that time was in the Kingston Union.
Plats.—Reference to the Hospital associates
the subject of Residential Flats. Throughout the
district many of the larger and by degrees most
of the basement houses are being converted into
Plats which are quickly taken up, but the supply
is not equal to the demand. In this way the population
is being considerably increased. At the
Census of 1911 the population was 17,717, and it
was estimated by the Registrar General as being,
in the middle of 1919, for the Birth-rate at 20,828,
and for the Death-rate at 19,994. One noticeable
consequence of this change in the circumstance of
the housing of a considerable portion of the
inhabitants is the want of accommodation for the
exigencies of illness. There is mostly no spare
room and in such conditions a nurse as an addition
to the family is not possible, to say nothing of the
inelastic domestic arrangements in most or many
cases. The Committee of the Hospital recognizing
this need have lately been considering the practicability
of again enlarging the present building