A Plea to the rich, June 1909

THE annual meeting of the Queen’s Hospital Children, better known perhaps to our readers as the North-Eastern Hospital for Children, Hackney-road, affords us an opportunity of emphasising the serious financial condition of the Institution, in the hope that its friends and the charitable public generally will speedily rally to the assistance of the committee and by subscribing the necessary funds, place the Charily on a firmer financial basis.

The case was put in a very clear and forcible manner by Mr. Joseph Meller, a member of the committee. He pointed out that not only did the Hospital start he year with a deficit of £3,400, but that up to date the expenditure had exceeded the income by another £1,000, thus increasing the indebtedness to £4,400. With these facts in front of them those responsible for the management can see nothing for it but a curtailment of the work, but we are pleased to know that they will not resort to this expediency except as a very last step.

Various speakers at the meeting - more particularly those connected with the locality, spoke of this threatened closing of wards as a calamity and that they were using no mere figure of speech is clear from one fact referred to by Mr. Meller.

As our readers may remember, some two or three years ago the Hospital was extended to meet the needs of the sick children of the district by its accommodation being brought up to 130 beds. That this was not a case of adding beds that were not needed is amply proved by the fact mentioned by Mr. Meller that at the return made by the resident medical officer a few days prior to the meeting, the actual number of patients in the Hospital was 141 — 11 in excess of the maximum number of beds in the Institution.

Surely after this no more need be said to prove that it would indeed be a calamity to the neighbourhood if the present accommodation should have to be curtailed by a single bed. The residents in the locality, despite their poverty, help the Hospital to the utmost of their ability, but it is clear that for the major part of the income required to maintain the Institution, the committee must look further afield.

They have a right to expect generous aid from the wealthy dwellers in the West, and up to a point this help has always been forthcoming. At this critical stage in the life of the Hospital they once again appeal to the rich and benevolent to aid them in keeping open wide the gates of the Institution for the admission of the sick and injured children of the great East-end; an appeal which we feel sure will not be allowed to fall on unheeding ears.