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116
1. That there was no impropriety in the request to the
Committee to consider your Vestry's suggestion that patients
should he admitted into the hospitals upon the direct application
of any medical practitioner, there being no evidence that the
suggestion when first made to the Managers had been considered
by that body.
2. That the system of admitting patients upon the application
of private medical practitioners has been in operation for nearly
twelve months, although, not "recognised by the Managers
as a body."*'
3. That the system has been a "success," and the
Committee do not dispute the fact.
With reference to the suggestion that I have informed your
Vestry that the said "system" had been "recognized by the
Managers as a body," I need hardly say that I have not done so.
What I did report to your Vestry may be seen in my seventh
report for 1884 (July 12, page 44). It was to the effect that the
Ambulance Committee "determined that no avoidable delay should
take place" (in the removal of patients), had "resolved to receive
any case of small-pox or fever into a Board Hospital upon the
direct application of any duly registered medical practitioner
and without a previous order from a relieving officer." I said
further, that " the details of the scheme are set out in the new
Regulations of the Board for the removal of cases of small-pox and
fever by the land and river ambulances just issued."f The
Regulations provide for notice of any case admitted at any hospital
being sent to the Clerk of the Guardians, and I mentioned that I
had " suggested that information of cases admitted direct into the
hospitals, should be forwarded at once to the Medical Officer of
Health, in order that he might take proper measures for disinfection,
&c." This "suggestion" of mine was embodied in a letter
* Should cholera invade the land patients would be admitted at the Managers'
hospitals in an even less formal manner, just as Small-pox patients now are, on
presenting themselves at the gate.
f See Regulations, fcot note, page 111, ante.