THE LONDON HOSPITAL [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Siu,—I have been silent for five years, but now once again, and probably for the last time in my life, I have to ask everyone to help the London Hospital. I have done this every fifth year since 1896, and at seventy-three years of age can hardly expect to have energy, or anything, left five years hence.
Somehow, we must raise £250,000 (two million half-crowns) this year. It would save much weary work and expense if this could 'be done without the giddy excitement of bazaars, dances, and other similar delirious endeavours. Surely we have a good enough' cause.
Let me put it plainly without exaggeration. The " London " is the largest hospital in England and in its poorest corner. It has been almost entirely rebuilt in the last thirty years at a cost of nearly £1,000,000. In its 188 years' work for the sick poor it has never been better able to meet its responsibilities. But here is the tragedy—we have to face a large deficit every year. So far we have succeeded in meeting these deficits by super-efforts in our Quinquennial Appeals. The hospital costs £260,000 a year to run. This is for upkeep only, and takes no account of progress.
Medicine, Surgery, Nursing—none of these stand still. New discoveries are made, new methods of treatment thought out, more nursing required. This week, to give the last instance, we have received a strongly worded request from the Surgical Staff for a further supply of radium, costing £3,000. Is it to be refused ? No. But only those who have been through the experience can realize .to strong the temptation is to turn one's back on some really hopeful idea of saving life, simply because there is no money. Certain it is, however, that the plea of Deficits must not prevail. Lessening suffering, conquering disease, must be the ideal ever before a large hospital, and so long as we maintain that ideal at the " London," I hope the public will not let us down.
Further, the duty of a large hospital is not only to cure the. present sick, but to study the causes of disease—to " prevent" (both in the usual, and in the Prayer Book sense) disease. This cannot be done without organization, without proper equipment, without collected experience. We have all this at the " London " to-day. It is heart-breaking to see it imperilled.
I do not ask that the hospital should be made rich, I do not look for any sum that will do away entirely with anxiety as to the future, but I do ask that this great hospital should be made secure for the next five years if only as a tribute to the work it has done for the country during the last 188.
[We hope that Lord Knutsford's appeal will meet with the success it deserves. It is deplorable to think that the " London " so urgently needs money for its upkeep.En.
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