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Limehouse Board of Works, to consider the subject of "provision
of Hospital accommodation for persons suffering from Infectious
Disease;” and at an adjourned meeting held 16th July, the
delegates unanimously adopted a resolution which, in March,
1879, was presented by a deputation to the President of the
Local Government Board, as follows:—
"That in the opinion of this Conference, many almost insurmountable
o bstacles present themselves to the carrying out, by the Vestries and District
Boards of the Metropolis, of the powers conferred upon them by the 37th
Section of the Sanitary Act, 1860, and it is further of opinion that it is desirable
that provision should be made by Act of Parliament for one Authority, acting
for the whole Metropolis, to provide Hospital accommodation for non-pauper
persons suffering from Infectious Disease, and is further of opinion that such
Authority should be as far as possible representative."
The views of your Vestry on the subject, as summarised
for the information of the delegates prior to the second meeting
of the Conference, were to the effect:—
(а) " That the Managers of the Metropolitan Asylums Board should be
empowered to make adequate provision of hospital accommodation
for infectious disease for all classes of the population in need of
such accommodation.
(b) "That patients should be admitted into the Managers Hospitals,
upon certificates signed by any duly qualified medical practitioner.
(c) "That as the hospitals of the Managers have been established for the
common good at the public cost, no compulsory payment should be
exacted from persons whom the Sanitary Authority may deem it
necessary or expedient to remove to the hospitals for the purpose of
isolation.
(d) "That all expenses inoident to the maintenance and treatment of such
persons in the hospitals should be defrayed out of a Common Sanitary
Fund, the Metropolis being treated for the purpose as a single
district; and
(e) "That steps should be taken to alter, by Act of Parliament, the constitution
of the Board, by severing its connection with pauperism in
so far as relates to the treatment of infectious disease, and by