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134
and then transmitted by him to the appropriate district. The
alteration is thought to be desirable for the sake of simplifying
the machinery of the present Order. The alteration will relieve
the Medical Officer of Health of a duty which had no relation to
the health of his District.
A table of fees is set out in Schedule B to the Order. The
scale for primary notifications is based on that prescribed by the
Infectious Disease* (Notification) Act, 1889. The fees are to be
paid by the Sanitary Authority at the end of each quarter, and
medical practitioners are not required for this purpose to submit
an account of fees claimed.
Inquiries under these Regulations need not and must not be
conducted in such a way as to cause annoyance to patients or
their friends. In visiting a workshop, for instance, the Medical
Officer of Health must carefully avoid any suggestion that the
visit is made in connection with a notified case of Tuberculosis.
In the Order, which came into operation on February
1st, 1913, the forms of the various Notification Certificates are
defined; but on Form A (Primary Notifications) the medical man
is not asked to state the capacity in which he makes out the
Certificate. The effect of this omission would be that we should
not know what fee was payable in respect of many of the Certificates,
seeing that the Notification Fees vary according to whether
the practitioner notifies the case as a private patient, or as a patient
treated at a public institution, &c.
These, with other recent Regulations, have added materially
to the otherwise increasing work of the Public Health Department.
It is no exaggeration to say that the clerical work has been more
than doubled during the past 5 years, and that the work of the
Public Health Officials has greatly increased. It is becoming
increasingly difficult with the existing staff to properly discharge
the duties imposed upon us. We can, for instance, make a visit,