§ MR. MACDONA (Southwark, Rotherhithe)I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the report that recently appeared in the Press is true wherein it is stated that last year, owing to mistakes made by medical men in notifying supposed cases of infectious diseases, 462 persons were removed to fever and small-pox hospitals who were suffering neither from fever nor small-pox, and that 102 of these lost their lives through removal to these centres of infection; and, if this report be true, what do the Government intend to do to protect the poor from this danger; and whether it is a fact that the fees, amounting to £57 15s., for notification in these cases, have been paid to the medical men who sent in these false certificates?
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. H. H. FOWLER,) Wolverhampton, E.The 462 cases referred to represent the total number of patients who, during the year 1891, were admitted into hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, although those patients were not suffering from any disease for which those hospitals are intended. In 450 of those cases admission was granted upon certificates which were afterwards found to have been incorrect. The Report of the Managers for the year 1891, pages 85 to 90, shows the diseases from which the patients were really suffering as ascertained by diagnosis after admission. Out of the 450 patients admitted upon incorrect certificates, 97 subsequently died. But in every case the patient died from the disease from which he was suffering at the time of admission, and it is altogether incorrect to allege that the deaths were due to the removal of the patients to the asylums. There is little doubt that fees were paid to the medical officers who gave the certificates referred to, but a laborious search would be necessary in order to ascertain the facts.