View report page

56
Poor Law Amendment Act, 1867, Section 22, provides that persons
suffering from infectious disease may be detained where removal would
be dangerous to themselves or others. I understand that the Local
Government Board has advised that phthisis would be included under
this description.
Certificates received under the Order are divisible as follows:
Form A 328, Form B 53, Form C 56, Form D 0. Nine persons
notified under the voluntary system eventually came under the Poor
Law, and a few Poor Law patients were re-notified from hospitals
or other institutions.
The machinery is a little complicated. In St. George's Union
patients may be notified first by the out-door Medical Officer, and then,
if admitted to the infirmary, by the Superintendent; or the first notification
may come from the latter, the nature of the illness being
discovered in the infirmary (perhaps the person has been an inmate of
the workhouse or admitted through the casual ward). In Westminster
Union a person may be notified first by the out-door Medical Officer,
then by the Medical Superintendent at Cleveland Street Infirmary,
then if transferred to Hendon by the Medical Officer there. In the
Strand Union the first notification comes from an out-door Medical
Officer, or from the Medical Officer of the Strand Receiving Ward; the
patient may then be sent to Cleveland Street or to the Strand Workhouse
at Edmonton, from which further notifications are supplied.
Notifications may also be received from other Union institutions or
from asylums to which patients have been sent. No information is
given on the certificates as to the date of admission to institutions, so
that it is found in a number of cases to have been years ago, the disease
having developed in the workhouse or asylum. In some cases the
residence given as the home address no longer existed.
The 56 intimations that patients were leaving institutions related
to 52 persons; 18 of these were not previously or subsequently notified,
and in only 5 instances were the addresses correct. Of the remaining
34 who had been or were subsequently notified, 12 only were found at
the addresses given, but with the exception of 4 persons the others
found their way back to the infirmaries, 21 of them having given
addresses in Westminster to which they were not entitled.
The co-operation of the Health Society in dealing with phthisis
cases has been very valuable. All the cases treated at home for any
time have been visited. The Society reports that many of the Poor
Law group are advanced cases, and although something can be done to
alleviate suffering and to prevent the further spread of infection—
either by arrangements in the home or by inducing the patient to
enter or re-enter the infirmary—yet it is too late to hope for any arrest