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28
Your Committee before arriving at any conclusion, "have had
the advantage of an interview with the Chief Surgeon of Metropolitan
Police (Dr. MacKellar), who was accompanied by the
Chief Inspector of the Public Carriage Office (Inspector Ware).
Your Committee are not prepared to recommend the Board
to offer facilities for the disinfection of public vehicles which may
have been used for the conveyance of persons suffering from
infectious disorders.
In the first place they are of opinion that public vehicles do
not admit of efficient disinfection, owing to the nature of the padded
linings and other upholstery used in their construction.
Further, even if truthful certificates of efficient disinfection
could be given, the grant of such certificates would tend to
encourage an increased use of public vehicles for the conveyance
of infectious cases. The employment of any public vehicle for
such a purpose is obviously most undesirable, and in the judgment
of your Commitee ought to be prohibited by law.
In these views it is believed that Dr. MacKellar fully concurs.
He, moreover, pointed out that the proprietors and drivers generally
were averse to such an employment of their vehicles ; and he
gave your Committee much valuable information as to the
difficulties experienced by persons of the non-pauper class in
seeking to obtain the removal of infectious patients.
The removal of persons of all classes suffering from infectious
disorders should, in the opinion of your Committee, be the duty of
a public authority; and your Committee regret that possessing
as the Managers do the machinery for the prompt and economical
removal of such cases, they do not appear to have power to use
their Ambulances for persons other than those contemplated by
the Poor Law Act of 1879.
Your Committee therefore recommend that the AssistantCommissioner
be informed, in reply to his letter of the 10th
ultimo—
(a) That the Managers are not prepared to undertake
the disinfection of public vehicles, as they are of opinion
that such disinfection cannot be efficiently performed
owing to the usual construction of those vehicles;