St. Anthony having so indisputably become the headquarters of the hospital stations, there can be but one answer to the question of the advisability of its closing its doors summer or winter in the days to come. For not only is our largest hospital located there—its scope due in great measure to the reputation gained for it by Dr. Little's splendid services, and continued by Dr. Curtis—but also the Children's Home, our school, machine shop, the headquarters of various industrial enterprises, and lastly a large storehouse to be used in future as a distributing centre for the supplies of the general Mission. Moreover, the population of the environs of St. Anthony, owing to their numbers and the fact that they can profit by the employment given by the Mission, should be able increasingly to assist in the maintenance of this hospital, though a large number of its clinic is drawn from distant parts. These patients come not only from Labrador, the Straits of Belle Isle, and southern Newfoundland, but we have had under our care Syrians, Russians, Scandinavians, Frenchmen, and naturally Americans and Canadians, seamen from schooners engaged in the Labrador fishery.
Harrington Hospital, located on the Canadian Labrador, must for many years to come depend on outside support. I am Lloyd Georgian enough to feel that taxation should presuppose the obligation to look after the bodies of the taxed. The Quebec Government gives neither vote, representation, adequate mail service, nor any public health grant for the long section of the coast which it claims to govern, that lies west of the Point des Eskimo. It is to my mind a severe stricture on their qualifications as legislators. That hospital should, we believe, be adequately subsidized and kept open summer and winter. At present we have to thank the Labrador Medical Mission, which is the Canadian branch of the International Grenfell Association, for their generous and continued support of this station.
Battle Harbour and Indian Harbour Hospitals can never be anything but summer stations, owing to their geographical positions on islands in frozen seas, on which islands there is practically no population during the winter months. But gifts and grants sufficient to maintain a doctor at Northwest River Cottage Hospital, and one if possible in Lewis Bay, winter supplements to these summer hospitals, are to my thinking more than justifiable.
As to the future of our hospital stations at Pilley's Islands, Spotted Islands, and Forteau, that will depend upon the changing demands of local conditions. That the need of medical assistance exists is unquestionable, as is evidenced from the many appeals which I receive to start hospitals or supply doctors in districts at present utterly incapable of obtaining such help.
ENTRANCE TO ST. ANTHONY HARBOUR[ToList]
One still indispensable requisite in our scattered field of work is a hospital steamer. In fact, not a few of us think that the Strathcona is the keystone of the Mission. She reaches those who need our help most and at times when they cannot afford to leave home and seek it. Her functions are innumerable. She is our eyepiece to keep us cognizant of our opportunities. She both treats and carries the sick and feeds the hospitals. She enables us to distribute our charity efficiently. The invaluable gifts of clothing which the Labrador Needlework Guild and other friends send us could never be used at all as love would wish, unless the Strathcona were available to enlarge the area reached. In spite of all this, those who would quibble over trifles claim that she is the only craft on record that rolls at dry-dock! Her functions are certainly varied, but perhaps the oddest which I have ever been asked to perform was an incident which I have often told. One day, after a long stream of patients had been treated, a young man with a great air of secrecy said that he wanted to see me very privately.
"I wants to get married, Doctor," he confided when we were alone.
"Well, that's something in which I can't help you. Won't any of the girls round here have you?"