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Particulars of any Standing Exemption from the provisions of Article 14
Unless there is sickness on board, oil tankers are not required to send a radio message as
to time of arrival.
In the case of oil tankers, proceeding up the River Medway and to Thames Haven, arrangements
have been made for H.M. Customs and Excise to issue Pratique if the answers given to
questions on the Declaration of Health form are all in the negative.
If any answers are in the affirmative H.M. Customs carry out the following procedure.
(a) Inform the Master that he is not to allow any unauthorised person to leave the ship
without the Medical Officer's permission;
(b) Issue modified pratique and allow vessel to proceed to her place of mooring, loading or
discharge. A full "Certificate of Pratique" is left on board addressed to the Medical
Officer of Health who will issue it in due course.
(c) In the most expeditious manner notify the nearest Medical Officer of the Port Health
Authority.
(5) Arrangements for:
(a) Hospital accommodation for infectious diseases (other than Smallpox — see Section VII)
Although Denton Hospital has been taken over by the South East Metropolitan Regional
Hospital Board under the National Health Services Act, the Port Health Authority continues to
exercise, through Dr. H.M. Willoughby, the Deputy Medical Officer, and the Assistant Port Medical
Officers, the medical supervision of cases admitted to the hospital. The nursing and administrative
control lies with the Dartford Hospital Management Committee. Consultant advice on
difficult cases is available through Dr. J. Pickford Marsden, Physician-Superintendent of Joyce
Green Hospital, Dartford.
Denton Hospital is always ready to receive cases of infectious disease occurring on ship.
This hospital, however, has only very limited clinical facilities and cases which are likely to
require specialised treatment or laboratory investigation are sent direct, or via Denton Hospital,
to Joyce Green Hospital or one of the larger hospitals in the Metropolis.
If at all possible, cases of sickness are disembarked into one of the Port Health Authority's
launches for conveyance to Denton Hospital, there to be admitted or else put into a waiting
ambulance. Ships which are berthing at Tilbury Landing Stage can conveniently land sick cases
there, either into a Port Health launch or into an ambulance.
Should weather or other conditions make it inadvisable to land a case at Gravesend, the
patient may be allowed by the Boarding Medical Officer to proceed up River in the ship to the
dock, in which event arrangements are made with the Emergency Bed Service for the case to be
removed by ambulance to a suitable hospital immediately the ship berths.
The number of cases admitted to Denton Hospital in 1960 was as follows:
Chickenpox 13
Diphtheria 1
Gastro-Enteritis 2
German Measles 3
German Measles (Contacts) 4
Infection of the arm 1
Infectious Hepatitis 2
Influenza 4
Influenza and Bronchitis 1
Malaria 1
Measles 6
Measles (Contacts) 2
Mumps 7
Pneumonia 2
Nasal Bleeding 1
Tonsillitis 1
TOTAL 51
DENTON HOSPITAL
I am indebted to the "Kent Messenger, the County Paper of Kent" for permission to reproduce
from their issue of 13th January, 1961, the following article, and also the photograph which
appears elsewhere in this Report:—
"There is one hospital in Kent where the patients are apt to bring out and use their
prayer mats several tiroes a day and where the cook has learned to produce appetising
curries into the ward fare. For often the patients are from the Far East.
"It is the Denton Isolation Hospital at Gravesend, which plays a major part in keeping
Britain free from infectious diseases.
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