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23
In September, a communication was received from the Asylums
Board asking to be informed if the Vestry would be prepared to
enter into a contract with them to receive non-pauper cases of
infectious disease upon certain specified conditions in accordance
with the terms of section 15 of the Poor Law Act of 1879. Under
this proposed contract, patients were to be admitted upon the
certificate of the Medical Officer of Health only. This certificate
was required to be sent to the Clerk of the Managers, who would
then admit the patient, providing there was room. This plan
would have required your Medical Officer of Health to visit each case
before removal—a duty almost impossible in times of epidemics, and
a requirement which would always cause great delay in the removal
of cases. In addition, considerable friction would undoubtedly be
caused, as medical men practising in the district would resent the
visit of the Medical Officer of Health to their patients as casting a
slur upon their powers of diagnosis. It was the opinion of the
Vestry that, as nearly the whole of those persons removed from
this district were either actual paupers, or became so by reason of
their illness, the duty of removing and treating them belonged
properly to the Poor Law authorities. The Vestry, therefore,
declined to enter into any contract on the matter with the managers
of the Asylums Board Hospitals.
Recently some new regulations for the removal of Small Pox
and Fever patients, and for furnishing information concerning the
same, have been framed and issued by the Asylums Board. They
are as follows :—
Metropolitan Asylums Board.
REGULATIONS
For the Removal of Smallpox and Fever Patients, and for Furnishing
Information concerning the same.
1. Applications for the removal of patients to the Hospitals of
the Board must be made to the Chief Officers (Ambulance Department)
between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. on week days, and to the Ambulance