30
REPORT OF THE
Is an entirely new
hospital neces-
sary ?
Hospital steward.
15. Because, if so, with the best hospital in the world, and operating on people who are
ordinarily in an unhygienic state, there will always be a proportion of cases followed by septic
disease, and we have seen that in the condemned College Hospital there have been only 2½
per cent. of pyæmia and 2½ of gangrene out of a total of 155 operations. May it not be pos-
sible to do more in the future than we have done hitherto to improve the hygienic condi-
tion of this section of the hospital sick, seeing that the general death-rate has been already
lowered so much in one year by the adoption of measures which were nevertheless at the
time of their incidence declared to be unnecessary ?
16. I have discussed this subject thus fully, because I consider that the lowered death-
rate of 1871 in the College Hospital, happening as it has, after the introduction of certain
administrative changes in the conduct of the hospital affairs, bears very directly on the large
question which still remains for the decision of Government,—Shall it be considered advisa-
ble to improve and extend the accommodation of the present College Hospital in the manner
sanctioned and approved by His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor, or are we to adopt the
views of the Principal and a section of the hospital staff, and believe that it is undesirable to
attempt an improvement of the present hospital buildings, on the understanding that the
faults of position and construction are of so radical a nature as to render it advisable to give
up the building altogether as a hospital ?
17. I have some strong opinion also on this subject, and I earnestly solicit the Inspector-
General of Hospitals to move the Government to carry out its original plan, to build new
surgical and midwifery hospitals, and to continue to occupy the present building as medical
wards, at once. I submit that the past year's statistics are hopeful for the future, and that
they justify the belief that disease may be encountered in the wards of the present hospital
with every prospect of success.
18. During 1871 the death-rate amongst Europeans has been as low at the College
Hospital as it has been at the General Hospital, notwithstanding the difference in locality.
As to the wards, they are all constructed on the same faulty system in both hospitals.
Remove the lying-in cases and the surgical operations from the present building, and give
all the wards over to the physicians, and with good hospital administration the death-rate
should be still further reduced, with the medical and surgical skill which we shall always
be able to command for this institution.
19. I would again invite attention to a recommendation which I made last year, especi-
ally as Dr. Chevers reports that the open contract system is in full working order: I allude to
the position of Mr. Bowser, who is now no longer purveyor to the hospital. I advise his
retention in the hospital as steward (as at the General Hospital) on his present salary, and
with the designation of steward.
Drainage of the
vicinity.
20. Dr. Chevers solicits sanction for the expenditure of Rs. 35-12-10 and Rs. 92-14-11
which have been expended over and above the amount sanctioned in the budget grant for
1871, and I would beg that he may be permitted to write them off the hospital books as
against the unexpended sums which have also received the Government sanction.
21. I give my full support to the proposition made by the chief medical officer that the
noisome block of buildings located in immediate vicinity to the hospital may at once be
placed in communication with the municipal drainage works. It is a filthy neighbourhood,
and it is very desirable in the interests of the hospital that the sewage from these low class
houses should be directly carried off instead of collecting in cess-pools and open kutcha
sewers which are disgusting to behold.