London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Hackney 1912

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hackney]

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148
further principles will also, I am of opinion, have to be settled—
1st: If any patient desires to be treated by his usual or any particular
doctor, the selected doctor should be asked to attend the patient.
2nd: Where no doctor is selected by the patient, the Insurance
Committee, on the advice of the Medical Officer of Health, will
select one. 3rd: I am of opinion that any doctor selected to attend
a patient should live within a reasonable distance of the patient's
home. 4th: That it is only reasonable that any doctor called upon
to attend a patient at his home, suffering from tuberculosis, should
not only be acquainted with the modern treatment of this disease
by means of tuberculin but also with its limitations. 5th: If a
doctor for certain reasons, which may be of a private nature or
otherwise, declines to attend any particular patient, another doctor
should be selected. (I do not think this refusal would be at all
common, on the contrary, a very rare event, but I think the objection
should be allowed.)
Copies of the lists so prepared should be kept by the Medical
Officer of Health, in order that he may carry out the instructions
of the Insurance Committee, in allocating cases for domiciliary
treatment.
(4) The linking, where necessary, of dispensary and home treatment.
It is necessary now to consider the agents or units which require
linking up, in the scheme tor the treatment of cases requiring
dispensary or domiciliary treatment. These are two, viz.:—(1)
The dispensary and dispensary treatment; (2) The medical practitioner
and domiciliary treatment.
The dispensary and dispensary treatment.
At present we have no Tuberculosis Dispensary in Hackney,
but for the purpose of this report I will assume that such an institution
has been established by the Borough Council, and that it is
co-ordinated with the Public Health work of the Borough, by being