In common, no doubt, with other residents we have received a letter from Viscount Knutsford, chairman of the London Hospital. "This grand old hospital, the largest in England," he writes, "is really in desperate straits. The one and only cure is to find new friends to come to the res cue." There follow some striking facts about the hospital, which contains 1,000 beds and serves the poorest part of London and the neighbouring counties seaward Its income is only £35,000 a year. Its expenditure exceeds £200,000 a year.
is in debt for the first time for years—to the extent of £75,000!
An average year shows 18,000 In-patients admitted, 450,000 Out-patient attendances, 4,000 Maternity cases visited in' own homes, 19,000 Operations.
But Hospital service does not end with the actual treatment of its patients. It is a far bigger thing.
Every individual and every home owes the great teaching centres all that makes for health; without them there would be no knowledge, no doctors, no nurses These are bad days in which to ask for money and it is a sad fact that nearly every hospital in England is experiencing the same penury. But there must be enough London men in Shanghai to feel practical interest in the London Hospital. What is wanted is these who will promise a regular annual or half-yearly subscription. We will gladly receive such and forward them, at the same time acknowledging in the paper.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.