WORLD’S LARGEST, EYE HOSPITAL

Taranaki Daily News, 20 July 1935, Page 10 (Supplement)

WORLD’S LARGEST, EYE HOSPITAL

Out-Patients Department At “Moorfields” CAREFUL ORGANISATION FOR . SWIFT SERVICE f FHE King George V Extension of the X Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, City Road, known generally as Moorfields Eye Hospital, will provide probably the swiftest and most modern Out-patient Department in the Old Country. It is estimated that, even in rush hours, no patient will have to wait more than half to three-quarters of an hour before being seen by the surgeons. As the average daily number of outpatients last year was 548, and sometimes over 600, the new department will greatly increase the hospital’s efficiency. On arrival in the special, light and airy new outpatients’ department patients are immediately divided into “new” and “old” cases. New patients are registered and asked for particulars; the old obtain their record cards. All are then examined and sent to the proper department. Each surgeon has a distinctive colour for the medical sheet to facilitate the filing of records, and . a card in the corresponding colour is given to the patient. The surgeon’s name in his colour is attached to a section of seats for waiting patients. This speeds up the proceedings between 8.30 a.m. and noon each day, when some 500 records nave to be extracted from the files. The Hospital’s Refraction Department has 17 cubicles, each .so constructed that the surgeon can examine the eye with the ophthalmoscope, and, without moving the patient, carry out the refraction test with the test type. A novel feature is that each of the surgeon’s clinics is a self-contained, completely equipped unit. This helps the patient, and enables the surgeon to carry out the post-graduate instruction which is a feature of the hospital. One of the most interesting places is the Orthoptic (squint) department, where children, and even patients of 30 or more, are cured of squint without operation. With the orthoptoscope, a child, looking through two glasses, sees on one side a soldier and on the other a sentry-box. When, by manipulating the handles the child is able gradually to put the soldier in the box, the child is cured.

Another system uses a seascape with ships. A child is given an instrument with a star on one side and a circle on the other. When, looking at the ships, the star is in the centre of the circle, the squint is cured.

A man with a bad squint was anxious to secure a post as a tourist guide. After three months’ treatment at Moorfields his squint was cured and he secured the job.

In the physico-therapeutic (light) department ultra-violet rays are applied both locally to the eye and in general light treatment. A mercury vapour lamp is also used, colloquially, to “ginger-up” the eye, but never more than for five minutes. The new extension is costing the hospital £113,000. The hospital is the largest eye hospital in the world,