The Story of a Hospital

By Wilfrid Edgecombe, M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.C.S.

The history of the Harrogate and District General Hospital

Slackness and want of keenness.

The effect on the honorary medical staff is described as follows:

There are four honorary physicians to in-patients. The average number of medical in­patients for the last six years has been 67 per annum - an average of just under 17 patients per physician. The cases allotted to each in turn occur spasmodically and in a desultory fashion. Weeks may elapse without a physician having a single case in the hospital. This inevitably tends towards a slackness and want of keenness on the part of the medical officers.

The memorandum goes on to suggest possible remedies for this state of affairs. As a short term policy of temporary expediency it proposes a reduction in the intake of surgical cases by a rigid scrutiny of those desiring admission and the elimination of all but the strictly eligible, a number of surgical beds thus freed to be reserved for medical cases.

As a long term policy, after close examination of all the alternatives suggested, it plumps for an entirely new hospital on some open site on the outskirts of the town as the only permanent solution of the problem.

It can be said that this memorandum was the starting point of a scheme which culminated 13 years later, after many vicissitudes, in the opening in 1932 of the Harrogate and District General Hospital where it now stands. More will be said later in this history of difficulties and controversies successfully overcome.

Last week's installment dealt with the memoranda which was to culminate in the opening, in 1932, of the Harrogate and District Hospital where it now stands. Meantime, the day-by-day work of the Infirmary, as it was then known, continued, and 1920 brought its Jubilee. It is recorded that the number of in-patients that year was 795, and of out-patients, 1,950 - figures emphasising the need for enlargement and more beds. It was computed that since the beginning in 1870, the total number of in-patients was 30,000, and of out-patients, 80.000.

In this year, 1920. the hospital suffered the loss of the honorary treasurer, Lord Faber, and Mr G G Stephenson succeeded him and held the office for 24 years.

In 1921 the debit of £5,000 on revenue account was nearly wiped out, largely owing to a "shilling-a-week" fund inaugurated by the Mayor, Mr J Houle. It realised £1,432 and there was also a generous donation from the president, Capt. Greenwood, of £1,000 far the endowment of a bed. The salary of the secretary was raised to £200 and that of the matron to £120.

The death of Mr J F Royce, former secretary to the hospital, who had held office for 30 years, was recorded in 1922, and in 1923 there is noted the first intro­duction of insulin for the treatment of diabetes. By the kindness of the chairman, Mr A W Bain, the children's ward was entirely refurnished.