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as proposed, we should be prepared to submit the necessary estimate in that behalf,
and the expenditure up to a sum of £650 can, as above indicated, be met out of the
estimates for the ensuing year
We recommend—
That no action be taken in the matter.
At the same Council meeting the Public Health Committee submitted the
following Report, which was adopted:—
We understand that the Finance and Parliamentary Committee are presenting
a report to the Council upon our reference to them with regard to the provision of
sanatorium treatment for consumptives.
It will be observed from such reference that Section 75 of the Public Health
(London) Act, 1891, gives the Council ample powers to adopt the course which we
suggest, viz.:—To maintain a number of beds in existing sanatoria for the reception
of consumptive patients selected from the inhabitants of the Borough.
During the time this matter has been under our consideration we have had a
number of pamphlets and reports presented to us, and the Medical Officer of Health,
in a lengthy report has submitted statements showing the methods of treatment
and the benefits derived by patients at sanatoria and giving other information on
the subject.
We think that the Council should make much more strenuous efforts to prevent
the spread of consumption than they are at present doing, and, in our opinion, the
provision of sanatorium treatment for inhabitants of the Borough is urgently required
and the extension by the new regulations of the Local Government Board of the
system of notifying cases of this disease (at present restricted to "Poor Law"
cases) to cases treated at hospitals and dispensaries makes the desirability for such
treatment even more apparent.
We therefore propose that at a cost not exceeding £650 the Council should,
as an experiment, maintain at existing sanatoria, a number of beds which should
be occupied by persons finally selected by us under the advice of the Medical Officer
of Health, and in this connection we would remind the Council that there is every
prospect of a dispensary for the treatment of consumptives being established in
this Borough as the result of the efforts which His Worship the Mayor is making
in connection with the memorial to King Edward VII. and the patients could be
selected from persons under treatment at the dispensary and thus render such an
institution more valuable as a means of dealing with this disease,
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