Asheville Daily Citizen

HELP THE HOSPITAL
LETTER FROM THE INSTITUTION'S SECRETARY.
How the Building is Arranged Now, and the Improvements That are Contemplated—A Subscription Paper.

The secretary of the Asheville mission hospital sends the following to THE CITIZEN:

"The citizens of Asheville have been so generous in their moral as well as pecuniary support of the hospital, that it is their due to be fully informed of all that the ladies propose doing.

"The present hospital building is beautifully situated and substantially built but owing to the bad arrangement of the interior partitions we are not able to care for half the patients we might if subdivided differently. In addition to this the ceilings are high, and the staircase long and fatiguing. The house is heated and lighted by old stoves and lamps, given second hand. The furniture is only that given in the same way and there are no two articles of the same size or style. The plumbing is also wholly inadequate—only one small bath tub, and one small boiler heated by the cook stove.

"The quarters for colored patients are totally inadequate to the demand, and patient after patient has been refused admission for want of room.

"Much valuable time is spent in turning and contriving and changing, and still the result is unsatisfactory. Our patient and long suffering doctors are continually annoyed and discouraged by the over-crowding, the bad heating and the bad ventilation; and after all the exercise of all our woman's wits we can only sigh and say we have done what we could.

"Blessed as we have been by the steady support of our good citizens for so many years; and having relieved ourselves of a large portion of the debt on the property, we have felt for some time that it was cowardly not to take some decided steps towards improvement. While still hesitating we receive the noble offer of the services of a lady who has graduated with distinction at one of the leading training schools of the country, and also of the sum of $2,500 towards remodeling and equipping the building.

"We would surely be recreant to our trust if we hesitated any longer. We are determined to proceed at once to make our hospital all it ought to be, and we feel a reasonable certainty that with every convenience and equipment of a city hospital with the host of trained nurses, our incomparable climate and our doctors, who stand as high as any in the country, we ought to get a revenue from pay patients to support the institution in a very large measure. Even under all our present disadvantages we are often obliged to refuse good paying patients because our whole space is occupied by those who have no other chance of care and treatment in their suffering.

"We are now in consultation with architects, builders, business men, lawyers and doctors, and if there is any truth in the adage "in the multitude of counselors there is wisdom," we hope to get the concentrated wisdom of all these embodied in our new departure. That money, and plenty of it, is needed for all this, goes without saying, but we surely have no reason to doubt that the Asheville people will stand by us in this as they have done in all plans for the good of the community and the wise care of the suffering poor.

"When our plans are mature, we will visit the good people of Asheville with a subscription paper and will gladly and gratefully accept all donations, large or small."

REV. R. G. PEARSON.