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G6
This Act is, in effect, the complement to the Notification
Act, and in my view, not inferior to it in importance qua the
interests of public health. It practically opens the hospitals to
all comers without restriction, save that reasonably imposed by
the Managers, viz., that no case shall be admitted without a
medical certificate, setting forth the nature of the disease, and
stating that the patient is fit to be removed ; or, in the alternative,
without the order of a Relieving Officer.
The Managers lost no time in giving effect to the Ambulance
provisions, having, on the recommendation of the Ambulance
Committee, resolved (30th November) :—
(a) That their carriages may be made use of for the conveyance of persona
suffering from "dangerous infectious disorders" to places other than
the Board's Hospitals, pursuant to the power conferred upon them by
section 6 of the Poor Law Act, 1889.
(b) That the charge to be made for each conveyance be, for the present, 5s.
{a) That discretionary power be conferred upon the Ambulance Committee
to remit the charge for such conveyance when they deem it expedient in
the interest of the public health.
(d) That the Ambulance Committee be authorised to convey persons under
exceptional circumstances to or from places outside the Metropolitan
area, and to make an extra charge for the service.
(e) That the Ambulance Committee be authorised to frame regulations
necessary to give effect to the several decisions arrived at by the
Managers.
Subsequently the Managers adopted a further recommendation
of the Committee, to the effect that nurses be supplied,
when applied for, to accompany patients to other places than the
Managers' Hospitals; a charge of half-a-crown per journey to be
made for the services of each of such nurses: so that an ambulance,
and the services of a nurse, for the removal of an infectious
case to and from any part of the Metropolis, can now be had for
seven shillings and sixpence ; whilst, by special arrangement, an
ambulance with a nurse may be obtained for the removal of a
patient to a place outside the Metropolitan area.