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46
This Bill passed the House of Commons in 1879 : your Yestry
petitioned in its favor, and urged other Vestries and District
Boards to do likewise; but having been mutilated in the
Lords, and so rendered practically useless, it was withdrawn.
In my 14th report for 1878 (December 11th, page 95), I
ventured to express the opinion that the object sought could be
attained by a Bill, or clause, drawn in some such terms as
follow, viz :—
" It is hereby declared that the surgical or medical assistance incident
to the treatment of any person in a union or pnrish hereafter
removed to a hospital provided for the isolation and treatment
of persons suffering from any infectious disease shall
not be considered to be parochial relief 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."
Your Vestry having been the first in the Metropolis, and
probably the first Sanitary Authority in England, to contend
that admission of a person into an infectious disease hospital
should not entail any disqualification, may fairly be congratulated
on the concession of the principle by Parliament.*
Your Vestry moreover, and for a long time alone, advocated
the principle of "free hospital treatment" of such cases. That
this principle will be conceded by law ere long, being already
established in practice, I do not doubt. "Notification" with
increased powers of " compulsory removal" must follow. No
sanitarian now questions the necessity of these things in
order to success in the contest with infectious diseases. The
great Conference of Sanitary Authorities, held at this Town
Hall in March. 1881, by an unanimous vote passed resolutions
in favour of them, and last, not least, they obtained the equally
unanimous support of the Hospitals Commission. With
such a consensus of scientific, official, and popular opinion,
legislation to give them effect can be but a question of time.
* It is assumed that the Bill will pass. Introduced on the 2nd August, the
third reading was taken on the 6th, there having been no opposition, and the
measure, apparently, having undergone no alteration.