HH62/2/RENFRE/35

Transcription

[Page] 34

keep in hand the diverse work over so large an area. The office
stamp-book, which is so arranged as almost automatically to indicate
whether particular letters or other communications have been sent
by me or one or other of the chief sanitary inspectors, exhibits an
expenditure of £11. 13s. 9d. for the year, and gives some indication
of the amount of clerical work involved in the administration of the
Department.

ISOLATION HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION IN THE COUNTY.

Probably no County in Scotland, at the passing of the Local
Government Act, was so well provided with hospital accommodation
for the isolation of cases of infectious disease, as the County of Ren-
frew. There was access for patients from the County (landward) to
Belvedere Hospital (Glasgow), one of the most famed institutions of
the kind in the world, to Knightswood Hospital (for patients from
Renfrew Parish), to the Govan Combination Hospital (for patients
from Govan Parish), to Cowglen Hospital (for patients from the south-
eastern parishes), to the Paisley Infirmary and Fever Hospital (for
patients from the widespread Abbey Parish), to the Johnstone Com-
bination Hospital (for patients from the Parishes of Houston,
Kilbarchan, Erskine, and Inchinnan), to Greenock Infirmary and
Fever Hospital (for patients from Kilmalcolm and Inverkip Parishes).
The only parish in the County without access to an isolation hospital
was Lochwinnoch. The misfortune was that these facilities were not
sufficiently utilized.
Since then the situation has altered in certain particulars, more
especially in the First or Upper District. Access to the Govan
Hospital has been abrogated by the inclusion of Govan Parish land-
ward, so far as in Renfrewshire, within the limits of extended Glas-
gow, and the extension of Glasgow has necessitated the withdrawal of
the access to Belvedere, which had previously been accorded to the
eastern section of the County. The arrangement subsisting between
the Abbey Parochial Board (acting as Local Authority under the
Public Health Act), and the Paisley Infirmary Authorities, was that
in consideration of the payment of a yearly sum of one hundred
guineas to the Paisley Local Authority, who built the Fever Hospital,
and four guineas per patient to the Infirmary Directors, at whose
cost the patients are nursed and fed, four beds in the hospital would
be placed at the disposal of the parish for isolation purposes. The

[Page] 35

First District Committee, of course, fell heir to this arrangement,
an arrangement which, financially, bore somewhat hardly, I think,
upon the landward Local Authority. The Paisley Corporation, how-
ever, has, as the result of negotiation, and in a neighbourly spirit
deserving of all honour, agreed, so far as the accommodation at their
disposal may permit, to receive patients from outwith the Abbey
Parish, over and above the four referred to in the agreement with the
Abbey Parish, upon payment of £2 2s per capita, (in addition to four
guineas per patient to the Infirmary Directors) - this in consideration
of the £105 paid to them as a standing charge, and having in regard
that they did not hold themselves bound to receive at any time more
than the four patients conceded by the original agreement. - The
Knightswood Hospital continues available for patients from the
Parish of Renfrew - practically that part of the parish north of the
Clyde. The District Committee here again fell heir to an agreement
of a somewhat extravagant character - there being a standing charge
of £45 per annum, in addition to a rate for board, etc., of £1 5s. per
week, one bed only being reserved for the use of the parish. Un-
fortunately, in a part of the County so detached, we have no alterna-
tive. The only satisfaction remaining to us is, that with a rapidly
increasing population, and more energetic action on the part of the
new Local Authority, the £45 charge will be spread over a larger
number of patients - for we shall not really be restricted to
one bed so long as there is vacant accommodation in the hospital
- and will be relatively less expensive than it has been in the
past. - The Cowglen Hospital, a wooden erection, was built origin-
ally at the expense of the Local Authority of the Parish of
Eastwood, for the isolation of cases of small-pox. Subsequently
it developed into a general Fever Hospital, managed and main-
tained by the Eastwood Local Authority, with the aid of con-
tributions from the various parishes sending in patients. To
this hospital, it is understood, the First District Committee has
fallen heir under the Local Government Act. The hospital has
apparently never been very much resorted to, and when the County
Health Department began, in the early winter of 1891, to utilize
it more actively, it was found to be but partly furnished and
plenished, and other defects became apparent. The truth is, and it
is of importance that it should be clearly recognised, that the hospital,
while sufficient for its original purpose, is entirely unsuited for use
as a general fever hospital; it is structurally impossible properly to