The new storey, which contains from thirty to forty beds, is already in use; and in view of this addition to the Hospital's accommodation it is interesting to review the past of the institution as recorded in old reports.
The Chinese Hospital was first started in the native city in 1844. Two years later, a site was bought outside the North gate with money raised by public subscription among foreigners and a Hospital erected. This building was removed to its present site in 1861 and rebuilt oe the same site in 1873, the building then erected being the one now in use. Since that date houses for the staff on land adjoining the Hospital have been acquired from the London Missionary Society; the original doctor's residence has been adapted to form a small Hospital with private wards for better class patients as a memorial to the late Dr. Lalcaca; the Women's Hospital was built in 1907 and the new storey referred to above added last year.
It is important to note, however, that the addition of this new storey does not by any means represent the growth of the last forty years. In 1873, when the present building was used for the first time 485 cases were treated patients and there were 41,634 visits to the out-patients department. In 1914 there were 1080 inpatients, exclusive of the Laleaca block, and 67, 383 out-patients. In fact, in the opinion of the committee, the addition of the new storey marks the limit of the old building. "It is as well to recognize" says the report "what shall have to face as unavoidable in the course of the next few years... " the rebuilding of the whole Hospital on larger and more modern lines."
The Women's Department.
In the Women's department, which Dr. H. C. Patrick is in charge, lack of accommodation is very marked.
'There are now seven nurses and two more are required but the nurses' quarters are suitable only for five. They have no dining room, no bathroom, no class-room for study and their sleeping-room overflows to the corridors where three of the Hospital's women helpers have their sole bedroom space. Moreover, the out.patient room is overcrowded, the dressings being done in a small corridor with no privacy, little space and bad light.
The annual report, however, makes no appeal. It sets out quietly, without exaggeration or complaint, what the Hospital has future relying for support on the generosity of Shanghai. We feel sure that it will not rely in vain.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.