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4?.
Board in advising the Managers to give effect to the views of the
Royal Commissioners for providing additional small-pox hospital
accommodation to meet all probable fixture requirements,
expressed the opinion that the proposed Municipality Bill (subsequently
abandoned for the current Session) should not be made
a cause of delay, inasmuch as there was not any intention by
that Bill to alter the constitution of the Board of Managers. The
only question, the Board say, will be
" Whether the care and management of the patients of the non-pauper
class should not be clearly shown to devolve on the Sanitary Authority
rather than upon the Asylums Board ? "
It would thus appear that the Local Government Board do
not agree with the Commissioners in their recommendations that
(1). " The provision of hospital accommodation for persons suffering from
infectious disease in the Metropolitan Districts should he entirely disconnected
from the administration of the poor law, and treated as part of the sanitary
arrangements of the Metropolis," and that
(2). " The conduct of the hospitals cannot be better placed than under the
management of the Asylums Board reconstituted so as to give the Sanitary
Authorities at least equal influence with the Guardians in the choice of elective
members." (" Practical recommendations," supra, page 29.)
Probably it was as the result of an oversight that the Board
recommended the Managers, as a poor law authority, to increase
the already excessive accommodation at their disposal, regarding
the hospitals as poor law establishments, in the same communication
which suggested the creation of a separate authority for
providing hospital accommodation for non-paupers. Be this as
it may, I desire once more to reiterate my conviction that it
would be a misfortune, and the reverse of economical, to have
two hospital authorities, and that the proper course would be to
abolish the distinction between pauper and non-pauper, placing
the treatment of infectious disease on the same footing as public
vaccination.*
* "It is hereby declared that the Vaccination, or the Surgical or Medical
assistance incident to the Vaccination, of any person in a Union or Parish
heretofore or hereafter performed or rendered by a public vaccinator shall not be
considered to be parochial relief, alms, or charitable allowance to such person
or his parent, and no such person or his parent shall by reason thereof be deprived
of any right or privilege, or be subject to any disability or disqualification."
Section 26 : The Vaccination Act of 1867.