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82,449, without including the conveyance of visitors to patients,
staff, etc. These removals have been carried out in all weathers
and throughout all seasons of the year, and to a great extent
during the hours of darkness, without detriment to the patients
and without accident or mishap to any person. A truly
magnificent record!
METROPOLITAN AMBULANCE SERVICE:
A DESIDERATUM.
The Poor Law Act, 1879, sec. 16, conferred on the Asylums
Board one of its most valuable powers, that ot' providing
Ambulances for the conveyance of the infectious sick to the
Hospitals of the Managers. Previously, the Boards of Guardians
had removed the sick in carriages few of which were
wholly satisfactory, and under conditions occasionally prejudicial
to the public health. The work of removal—whether by land
or water—is now effected in an unexceptionable manner. This
remark, however, applies only in the case of patients in course
of transit to or from the Managers' Hospitals. It is often quite
otherwise in respect of private patients. The law does not forbid
the use of public vehicles (cabs) for the removal of infectious
persons, provided that the vehicles are afterwards disinfected.
But the driver of a cab may be unaware of his fare's illness:
the efficacy of any practicable disinfection, moreover, may be
reasonably doubted. Consideration of these and other objections
to the existing law, led me to the conclusion that cabs, etc.,
should never be used for this purpose, and that it would be to
the public advantage to make the Asylums Board the Ambulance
Authority for removal of the infectious sick of all classes. In
1884, therefore, I addressed a communication to the Managers,
proposing that they should place their ambulances at the service
of the medical profession and Medical Officers of Health, with
or without payment, for the conveyance of infectious sick
persons. The Managers replied that they were, at that time,