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107
contract with sanitary authorities), "and being of opinion that
there would be no occasion for any special form of contract,
resolved to inform the several local authorities that they were
prepared until further notice to give effect to Clause 15 of the Poor
Law Act of 1879, by' admitting into their hospitals patients
suffering from fever and small-pox, upon the orders of the Medical
Officer of Health, at a fixed charge of four guineas per case, such
charge to include the maintenance and clothing of the patient when
in hospital, as well as removal to and from the hospitals, but not
the cost of any new clothing that may be supplied on discharge;
neither will it include the cost of the funeral of any patient who
may die in hospital." "The Managers' responsibility, thus
voluntarily assumed, for the reception and treatment of non-pauper
cases will cease immediately accommodation at the Managers'
disposal shall no longer be available," and then, " the duty of
providing for the treatment of patients," other than paupers, will
devolve, as now, upon the sanitary authority of the district where
the cases may arise. The Managers " cannot undertake to make
any class distinction in the treatment of patients confided to their
care, and it will rest with the Sanitary Authority, as it may think
expedient, and according to the circumstances of each individual
patient, to recover all or part of the expense incurred in his
maintenance and treatment in hospital." In the existing state of
the law, it would, no doubt, prove highly convenient to some of the
sanitary authorities to be enabled to send patients into the hospitals
on the terms set out in the resolution adopted by the Managers,
for the simple reason that the Boards of Guardians in the districts
of such authorities, will do nothing to facilitate the admission of
patients who are not paupers. But where, as in this parish, the
Guardians unite cordially with the Sanitary Authority in every
effort to check and prevent the spread of infectious diseases, and
are willing to accept the pecuniary responsibility in regard to all
local cases admitted into the hospitals, any change in system would
but complicate matters, without any corresponding advantage;
there being no question of the true economy of safe isolation of
infectious patients, in hospitals, at the public cost; the money,
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