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Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health,—1893. 47
Its neglect entails delay which is apt to cause greater mischief than can be repaired
by any subsequent effort.
The Infectious Disease (Notification) Act, 1889, has been adopted by a large
majority of Provincial Sanitary Authorities, urban and rural.
The time has arrived, I think, when the Act should be made compulsory for the
United kingdom, as it has been in London from the first.
The sum in fees paid to medical practitioners for notifying infectious cases in St.
George's, amounted in 1893, to £71 18s. 6d. This amount paid by your Vestry is
recouped by the Asylums Board, and charged to the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund.
34 per cent. of the total number of cases notified in the Parish during 1893, as against
67 per cent. in 1892, were removed to the Asylums Board and other hospitals for
infectious disease. The large decrease in the rate of admissions during the year
under report was due to the insufficiency of the hospital accommodation. This forms
a serious danger in so poor and densely-packed a district as St. George's.
Removal of Destitute Patients suffering from
Infectious Disease to the Asylums Board Hospitals.
Dangerous delay has occurred in the removal of destitute infectious patients into
hospital, owing to the refusal of relieving officers to furnish the requisite medical
attendance.
In a letter received from one of these officers, dated July 1st, 1893,1 was informed
that my proposal that the officer in question should deal with a certain destitute case
of scarlet fever, was "unprecedented." The officer went on to say that "the
Sanitary Authorities are the ones who should remove infectious cases, paupers or
non-paupers."
Your Sanitary Authority, not feeling satisfied with the drift of this letter, forwarded
it to the Guardians of Saint Saviour's Union.
The latter supported their officer, and, after a long correspondence between the
Guardians, your Sanitary Authority, and the Local Government Board, the last
body, in a letter dated 11th December, 1893, said:—"When a person suffering from any
infectious disease is destitute, it is the duty of the Guardians, or in the interval
between their meetings, of the relieving officer, to give such relief as may be needed,
and, if necessary, to give an order for the admission of the patient to a hospital in
which he can properly be treated. The destitution here referred to does not
necessarily depend upon the person being in the actual receipt of poor relief, but may
consist in his being unable to obtain, at his own cost, the requisite medical attendance,
nursing and accommodation, which his case requires. If it is proposed that the
patient should be treated in one of the hospitals belonging to the Managers of the
Metropolitan Asylums District, the removal should, if possible, be effected by means of
one of their ambulances."
The drainage of Institutions within the Parish.
During the past year my attention has been especially directed to the drainage
and general sanitary arrangements of the Parish Institutions, a term which includes
places of public amusement.
The following are among the principal works carried out, or suggested:—Evelina
Hospital for children—newly drained by means of iron and stoneware glazed pipes,
waiting room more efficiently ventilated.
King Edward's School—the children were sent into the country and the school
re-drained, at a cost of upwards of £2,000.