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53
The following table of information obtained from Metropolitan Medical
< )fficers of Health shows how easily each city and borough could act as its own
clejring-house. If medical certificates of the notifiable infectious diseases
were sent by the medical staffs of public hospitals and dispensaries to the
Medical Officer of Health of the city or borough in which the institutions are
situated, instead of being sent to the Medical Officer of Health of the city or
borough in which the patient resided or resides, and the Medical Officer of Health
were required to forthwith forward such certificates to the Medical Officer of
Health of the city or borough in which the patient resided or resides, having
extracted such information as he may require, several advantages would be
obtained. Firstly, the medical staffs of public hospitals and dispensaries
would be spared the (to them) difficulties and worries of finding the situation
of the patient's residence in order to ascertain the Medical < )fticer of Health
to whom the certificate should be sent; secondly, the Medical Officer of Health
would at once know what was taking place with regard to infectious disease
in the institutions of his borough, and in accordance with the present practice
(as a variable number of certificates of cases residing elsewhere are now sent
to the Medical Officer of Health of the borough in which the institution is
situated and have to be forwarded to another Medical Officer of Health), the
contents of the certificate would be immediately telephoned to the Medical
Officer of Health of the borough of the patient's residence and the certificate
immediately sent 011 by post. With regard to payment, this could be easily
adjusted by one borough reclaiming from another borough the few shillings or
pounds disbursed for in- or out-patients of public hospitals and dispensaries
not resident in the borough where the institution is situated.