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63
It may be mentioned that the Medical Officers of the Metropolis,
who have no object to serve apart from the preservation of
public health, are unanimous in their views on this question,
views which have lately found expression in a report by the
Council of the Society of Medical Officers of Health, wherein it is
maintained that—
“ Every possible facility should be afforded for the admission
to the hospitals of the infectious sick, and that as no attempt has
been made to define ' non-pauper ' from other cases (presumably
owing to the difficulty attending any such definition), and as
dangerous delays would inevitably result from conflict of opinion,
between poor-law and sanitary authorities, as to the status of
candidates for admission to the hospitals, the wiser and better
course would be, some arrangement whereby all rate-supported
hospitals should be freely open, without payment, to all classes of
the community, without distinction; that orders for admission
should be given by Medical Officers of Health as well as by
Relieving Officers; that the certificate of any registered medical
practitioner should be accepted as evidence of the infectious
character of the illness and of the patient's fitness for removal,
and that all charges incurred in the maintenance of the hospitals
should be defrayed out of the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund,
until such time as the hospitals themselves shall have been
transferred to a properly constituted central sanitary authority.”
AVhat action the Local Government Board will take with
reference to the Managers' communication referring to their
disposal the question, as raised by section 15 of the Poor
Law Act, 1879, remains to be seen; but the Managers
themselves, in the early part of the current year, took a
great stride in advance of their former views, having, in fact
decided “ that application be made to the Local Governrnen
Board for, or to obtain, authority for the Managers to remove all
persons suffering from fever or small-pox whose removal shall be
applied for by duly qualified (registered) medical practitioners ”—
a new departure which will involve the concession of free treatment
of the sick, for which I have been contending now for many years.