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182
PUBLIC HEALTH (TUBERCULOSIS) ORDER AND REGULATIONS,
1908.
Certain difficulties having arisen under this Order and Regulations quoted
in the Annual Report for 1908, Part VI. Legislation, § 3, Orders, it is
desirable that the following decisions of the Local Government Board should
be known and placed on record:—
(1) Notification without definite address.
A certificate was received by the Medical Officer of Health from the Master
of a Union Workhouse stating that a patient who was suffering from
Pulmonary Tuberculosis was taking his discharge on a particular date and
proceeding to " Paddington," no definite address being given.
The Local Government Board in a letter (22673M/1909), dated 19th March,
1909, expressed the opinion "that a notification in the form of that of which
a copy was enclosed does not entitle the notifyee to a fee.
(2) Repeating notifications.
A Poor Law Medical Officer submitted the following questions as to repeating
notifications:—
(a) If a patient certified (outside an institution) as having pulmonary
tuberculosis goes to the Infirmary or Workhouse for any period—no matter
how short — and on leaving same goes again under the care of a Poor Law
District Medical Officer, should latter re.certify the case ?
(b) Where the term is fixed to Order for medical out.relief and renewed
on expiration of the said term, should a Poor Law Medical Officer re.certify
on renewal of Order ?
The Local Government Board advised (92938M/1909) under the date 5th
August, 1909—
(a) The Poor Law Medical Officer should re.certify the case, and (b) the
Poor Law Medical Officer should not do so.
(3) Compulsory detention of paupers suffering from Pulmonary Tuberculosis.
Provision is made by Section 22 of the Poor Law Amendment Act, 1867
30 and 31 Victoria Ch. 106), for the detention in the Workhouse of inmates
suffering from bodily disease of an infectious or contagious character. In
1905, in reply to an inquiry addressed to them on the subject the Local
Government Board stated that if advanced phthisis from which a workhouse
inmate is suffering is pulmonary tuberculosis with expectoration they thought
it might be regarded as an infectious disease within the meaning of the
Section.
(See decisions of the Local Government Board, 1905, edited by W.B. Casson,
published by Knight & Co., page 157.)