Aug. 2:
No committee that cots to work to out down expenses when ther in the home or in the state gan hope to be popular, but must inevitably encounter antagonism and bitter protest every turn, The Municipal Council's committee is: making no rosier progress through this community's public accounts thin such a committee ever does, but it would seem that in arriving at a tentative decision to! close the Victoria Nursing Home some little while back, it had tun up against a particularly resolute barrier of opposition. Sentiment, the question of the adequacy of existing hospital accommodation and the problem of the distribution of hospitals. in Shanghai all came into to it and have come into it with such force that the committee is wisely contemplating the appointment of a sub-committee to make an investigation into the whole hospital question and shoulder the responsibility for a recom~ mendation.
The Victoria Nursing Home was built with funds raised by]
subscription started within the British community here in 189 the year of Queen Victori: jubilee, The announced _purpose was to erect a hospital as' a "perpetual memorial" to the Queen, The first donors were] British, but eventually all nationalities were called upon and gave their quota, while the Municipal Council finally gave! the land. The hospital was opened in 1901, and the Council then undertook to make good the inevitable deficit between income and upkeep. No legal responsibility to shoulder this responsibility was incurred, but the Nursing Home's present defenders insist that a moral responsibility to the original subscribers who. built: the "perpetal memorial" wis incurred and that this cannot be lightly discarded now. The members of the medical fraternity advance pleas, however, which apsomewhat more strongly to the practical minds of the econ-arnists who see in the closing of the Home an opportunity to so mothing like Tls. 70,000 year, They say that while there is adequate accommodation here in normal times, with the community in normal health, without the Nursing Home, continues to be popular and well filled, indicating that the public appreciates its service, and that, it isa necessity in its present, situation. They insist that the existence of the large and well ffed Country Hospital on the outskirts of the western district oes not do away with the need for a hospital in Hongkew which has a growing population of people who want to go to a tio: pital in the vicinity of the homes and whose friends and relatives cannot all, by any] means, afford motor cars for frequent visits to another remote suburb. This "geography ical argument" is accepted 'a valid by all who are into ested. The medical people say that what is really wanted is a modernized Victoria Nursing Home in Hongkew, but that, while economy is: under discussion it is hopeless to bring up any discussion of renovations or} for a site in better surroundings. The best thing, is to attempt to retain the Nursing Home for a few years and hope for better times, since it is'much easier at any time to arouse interest in a newer and better hospital than to resurrect, an institution that has been put out of existence.
One cannot refer to the enemy ies of the Nursing Home for it} has no enemies, but those who oppose these arguments and favour the closing of the Home are moved by a consideration of the fact that the Country. Hos-! pital has never yet been filled and by the belief that, existing accommodation, without—the Home, is adequate for any conceivable emergency. Here the argument begins between experts, and it is not one that we Propose to take up on either ide. We can only endorse the suggestion that before a committee of laymen interested solely in economy does away with Hongkew's hospital and with a memorial to which scores of persons attach no little sentinental regard, the hospital problem should be studied and reported upon by the suggested committee of experts.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.