HOSPITAL MANAGEMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 154, 30 June 1903, Page 2

HOSPITAL MANAGEMENT.

(To the Editor.) Sir,-In view of the agitation that has existed tor some time on the subject J hospital finance I think that the followmg letter to the London "Times." srfal some statistics of the London Hot,if a i is of sufficient public interest to warrant publication.—l am, etc., INTERESTED. [Extract.] (To the Editor of "The Times.") Sir—Again I have to make a very earnest appeal to the public to" help the London Hospital. If the public could but realize how irk some it is to have to ask for money they would, I feel sure, save us who are responsible for this vast hospital from this weary and disagreeable task of hegnj So wearisome is this endeavour to" get money that one is often tempted to give up hospital work altogether rather than face it, in addition to the great call on one's time of managing a hospital where oyer one thousand people sleep every night. But there is a driving force which keeps one at it, and that is day by day seeing misery and suffering endured by sick poor people, which might be measurably lessened if only more money were available. Will anyone who reads this letter just try and grasp what our position is? The ."London" is the only hospital for adults 'in the whole of East London (save sixty accident and twenty medical beds at the Poplar Hospital for Accidents). It is the largest hospital in London, doina nearly the work of any other two cony S bined. It is also the largest children'n ! hospital in London. Last year there were 13,160 in-patients and 162,147 outpatients. This means 162,147 separate people—not that number of attendances. Or, if you like to put it in a more realizable form, we treated in 365 days 6G£ miles of human beings standing close side by side. To these poor people were dispensed 2,500,000 pills and about three tons of cough lozenges in the year. In dressings they used 92 miles of lint, 476 miles of bandages, and also six tons of cottonwool, and nine miles of plaster. Every day they consumed half a ton of ice and 400 syphons of soda water, and in the year six and a half miles of eggs. Their milk bill. was £ 3500, and the butcher's bill was £5300. These are figures which but very few people will take the trouble to grasp; but still fewer, I fear, will try to realize what it means to face this great rash of people crying for help without adequate means to help them as they ought to be helped. It means that we can only take in the very ill, though we could save many precious lives if we could take people in at an earlier stage of their illness. It means that people, Avretchcdly ill people, have to wait four' or five hours before they can be seen, and per haps another hour before they can get their medicine. It means that we cannot hope to overtake for nearly two years the applicants for the Finsen light cure for lupus. Owing to the foresight and generosity of Her Majesty Queen Alexandra, who started the Finsen light cure for lupus in this country and presented the first lamp to the London Hospital, we have been able during the last three years to establish beyond dispute the marvellous results of the light cure. Although we have added eight lamps to the four Queen Alexandra gave us, and have now fifteen nurses working at nothing else, it will take us two years before we can get through the patients waiting to be cured from all parts of England. It means much more; but if I were to attempt to enlarge even on what comes well within my own personal knowledge I should only be supposed to be hysterical or to be exaggerating. But I declare, with all the earnestness at my command, that if we had money enough it is impossible to overstate the amount of suffering that we should be able to alleviate. We have about £257,000 invested, and our income from this, from trust funds, and from our estate is only £22.000 a year. It takes £85.000 a year to keep up the hospital. [The letter goes on to show how neces_ sary an hospital is in the situation of the London, and winds up]:—l do most sincerely ask all who read this to help me in what is a very uphill task. Yours faithfully, SYDNEY HOLLAND, Chairman. London Hospital, Whitechapel.