Metropolitan workhouses (infirmary wards). Copy of report of H. B. Farnall, esquire, Poor Law inspector, on the infirmary wards of the severall metropolitan workhouses, and their existing arrangements / (Mr. Childers).

  • Farnall, H. B.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Metropolitan workhouses (infirmary wards). Copy of report of H. B. Farnall, esquire, Poor Law inspector, on the infirmary wards of the severall metropolitan workhouses, and their existing arrangements / (Mr. Childers). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    These 40 workhouses are stated to be capable of accommodating 28,550 in- mates, and there are usually upwards of 23,000 persons in them, who may be classified as follows, viz. :-Temporarily disabled, about 6,000; old and in- film, 10,300, imbeciles and idiots, 1,800 ; able-bodied, 2,850 ; and children, 3,000. Of the above workhouses the following 13 are built in the suburbs of London, and will contain 8,821 persons, namely, Bethnal Green, near Victoria Park ; Fulham, to the west of Hammersmith ; Hackney, at Homerton ; Hampstead’, Kensington, City of London, Bow Road, East London, at Homerton ; West London, at Holloway ; St. Margaret and St. John, Westminster, at Kensington ; Paddington; Stepney, at Bromley, Middlesex; Rotherhithe; and Wandsworth and Clapham. There are 18 workhouses, of the above 40 workhouses, which possess infir- maries detached from the body of the house ; but neither of these detached infirmaries, with the exception of the infirmary of St. George, Hanover-square, at Chelsea, is sufficiently large to accommodate all the sick and bed-ridden who are under the care of the workhouse medical officers, so that many of those classes are warded in the body of each workhouse. The workhouses having detached infirmaries are those of St. Saviour’s; Greenwich; Shoreditch; Mile-end Old Town; City of London; Stepney ; Ken- sington ; St. George, Hanover-square, at Chelsea; St. Margaret and St.’John, Westminster, at Kensington ; East London; Fulham; Rotherhithe; Paddington; St. Pancras; Bethnal Green; St. Mary, Newington ; Wandsworth, and Clapham and West London. In the course of my inspection 1 visited 794 wards, containing 9,238 beds (97 of which were double beds), and occupied day and night by sick and bed- ridden poor. Your Board will remember that an opinion of the principles which should guide any efforts to improve the State treatment of the sick poor in workhouse infirmaries was given to you by Dr. Watson, President of the College of Phy- sicians ; by Dr. Burrows, President of the General Medicine Council; by Sir James Clark, by Dr. Jenner, by Dr. Sieveking, by Sir William Furgusson, and by Mr. Paget; these eminent men suggested that any scheme, to be satisfactory, should be based upon the following principles:— “ The sick poor should be separated from the able-bodied paupers, and their treatment should be placed under a distinct management.” “ In lieu of sick wards annexed to each workhouse, consolidated infirmaries should be provided, where the following rules of hospital management should be adopted under skilled supervision. They are those generally adopted in this and other European countries. 1. The buildings should be specially devised for the purpose of suitable con- struction, and on healthy sites. The rules laid down by the Barrack and Hos- pital Commission may be consulted with advantage on this subject. 2. Not less than 1,000 (and for particular classes of cases 1,200 to 1,500) cubic feet of air should he allowed to each patient. 3. The nursing should be conducted entirely by a paid staff; and there should be not less than one day nurse, one night nurse, and one assistant nurse, for each 50 patients. 4. There should be resident medical officers in the proportion of not less than one for each 250 patients. 5. The medical officers should not have any pecuniary interest whatever in the medicines supplied, nor should they be charged with the duty of dispensing them. 6. A judicious classification of patients should be strictly observed. The epileptic and imbecile, the acutely sick, and the aged and infirm, being treated in senarate wards. x 7. The aged and infirm, the chronically sick, and the convalescent, should be provided with day rooms separated from the dormitories. In a book, the title of which is “ Notes on Hospitals, by Florence Nightin- gale,” I find, at pages 65, 66, and 67, the following remarks. In