EDITORIAL – Success of Convalescent Institutions

Accreditation the Redcar and Saltburn-by-the-Sea 27/05/1870.

SUCCESS OF CONVALESCENT INSTITUTIONS.
(EDITORIAL)

            The last 10 years have witnessed the constantly increasing success of Convalescent Institutions, both at the seaside and in the country, the great want of which was previously felt by all who witnessed Hospital Work in our large towns, and who were acquainted with the mass of sickness and suffering which is generated or induced in the great manufacturing centres of our population. It is truly a great matter to provide Hospitals for the immediate reception of sufferers from accident, where the man struck down in the mine, or disabled at the works, can be instantly and skilfully cared for, and where often times miracles of healing are wrought, such as our forefathers would never have believed; order came when the sufferer from the acute disease is confined to a small, ill ventilated chamber in one of the slums of an overcrowded town, how great a boom is the Hospital, which gives renewed life to the sufferer and provides means of recovery, such as the poverty and disease stricken home could not by any means attain to. These Hospitals are truly noble Christian Institutions, and we are bound to speak in the highest terms of the scale, the kindness, and the almost perfect provision made in them for the sick and suffering inmates. We may, and ought to speak well of the strew houses of mercy; they are the glory of our land, there are the proof and produce of our benevolence and our faith. And yet, after the full benefit of the Hospital has been received and its proper work accomplished, there often times remains a further work to be achieved without which the breadwinner, but freely resume his accustomed labour, or the mother toil for the welfare of her family after partial recovery from severe sickness. The invalid once rest, good support, and fresh invigorating air, all of which, in the early stage of recovery from illness, contribute powerfully to the perfect restoration of health. And how are these to be obtained? The question may now be fairly answered: by the Convalescent Institution, where the work of recovery may be perfected, the sufferer restored to health, and comfort brought back to the family of the convalescent. That these institutions were needed as supplementary to the work of our Hospitals, as well, the sick poor recovering from illness who have not needed Hospital treatment, has really say during the last 10 years been successfully demonstrated, both here and elsewhere, in the country, as well as the seaside, and it is gratifying to know that that the Coatham Convalescent Home has not only performed its own special work in aiding the recovery of the sick within its walls, and increasing the accommodation by the addition of the wing built last year, so that now there is room for 100 patients, but it has also formed a model and incitement to the benevolent men to found other institutions of a similar character; amongst which may be mentioned the Cookridge Convalescent Home, 6 miles from Leeds, built at a cost of £10,000, by the son of the late John Smith, Esq., Banker, of Leeds, who was one of the earliest friends and supporters of the Courtroom Hall; and the present temporary Home at Saltburn, supported by the beneficence of the Pease’s, which will shortly be replaced by a new and spacious building more perfectly adapted to meet the ones of their all largely increasing body of workmen. Space would fail us to enumerate all the similar works which have been built and projected in various parts of the country, but it is interesting to note the progress of this particular department of the Christian Work in our own neighbourhood, and to find from the recently published report of the Courtroom Hall that it’s Work steadily progresses, and that it only needs a larger body of subscribers to bring its increased accommodation more fully within the reach of those for whom it is designed, and without which the full benefit of the Institution, in its enlarged form, can scarcely be realised. We are glad to learn that the Earl of Zetland, gratified with the management of the Institution, has doubled his subscription, and we trust that the example of his Lordship will be followed by many will have means at their disposal, and are willing to aid their suffering fellow creatures in their times of necessity and sickness within a month’s sojourn at the “Home,” at a cost of Two Guineas to the subscriber, which in many cases means a new lease of life, a veritable turning of the son 10° backward for the invalid, but for the help those afforded might have sunk into an untimely grave.