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35
MEDICAL INSPECTION OF ALIENS.
Every alien landing in this country is examined by an Immigration Officer. The
objects of the medical inspection of aliens are:—
(1) to secure the exclusion of aliens (or their temporary isolation in
appropriate cases) whose state of health is such that that may be a danger to
persons in this country; and
(2) to assist the Immigration Officer in deciding whether an alien should
be refused leave to land on the ground that his medical condition may impair
his existing or probable future capacity to support himself and his dependents,
or may require treatment which he will be unable to provide from his own
resources.
The Medical Inspector is required, as far as possible, to submit all alien
passengers arriving to visual inspection either on the ship or when they land, as is
most convenient. He must select for closer examination, as the result of this
superficial inspection, any alien who he thinks should be so examined, and if he finds
such alien to be suffering from some disease or deformity which would make the alien
a danger to the public health or which renders him likely to become a public charge,
the Medical Inspector must issue the appropriate certificate to the Immigration Officer,
who will refuse the alien leave to land.
But, in addition to this preliminary inspection, the Immigration Officer, during his
subsequent examination of the aliens, is required to refer to the Medical Inspector
any who are coming to take up employment in this country for more than three
months or who propose to reside here permanently, and any who appear to be mentally
or physically abnormal or sub-normal or in regard to whom he has any suspicion
that they are not in a sound state of health. The Medical Inspector, having examined
an alien so referred to him, must consult with the Immigration Officer as to whether
all the circumstances make it desirable to refuse the alien leave to land.
New instructions on the above lines were issued to Medical Inspectors in
December, 1929, and came into operation on 1st January, 1930. They are based on
suggestions put forward by your Medical Officer some years ago, he having found
from experience that to carry out the previous instructions, which required that all
aliens who intended to. remain in this country for over three months should be
medically examined, was impracticable without causing delay and inconvenience to
passenger traffic out of all proportion to the advantages accruing.
In the Port of London it is difficult for the Medical Officers and the Immigration
Officers to work in close co-operation, because alien passengers are landed at so many
widely separated places in the River and Docks. But a Medical Officer always attends
at the landing of passengers who have arrived by the regular services from the
Continent, and many other vessels carrying alien passengers are boarded by the
Boarding Medical Officer on duty at Gravesend. When the new boarding launch is
in commission it is hoped that it may be possible to arrange for all vessels carrying
alien passengers to be boarded, so that the Medical Officer may inspect them. There
are a number of Immigration Officers attending to the landing of passengers from
vessels at docks, quays and river wharves, and it is obviously impossible for a Medical
Officer to accompany each one. But if an Immigration Officer is not satisfied as to
the health of any alien, he telephones to the Port Sanitary Office and a Medical Officer
is sent to the ship as quickly as possible.
On the new landing stage at Tilbury accommodation has been built for the
inspection of aliens by the Immigration Officers, and medical examination rooms have
been provided. The more the landing stage is used for the landing of passengers the
easier it will be to carry out the Aliens Order, 1920.
TRAINING SHIPS.
There were small outbreaks of Scarlet Fever on the "Arethusa," Mumps on the
"Cornwall," and Diphtheria and Scarlet Fever on the "Stork." The "Exmouth"
had one case of Scarlet Fever, one of Chicken-pox and one of Pneumonia.
"Warspite" and "Worcester" remained free from notifiable infectious sickness
throughout the year.