§ MR. A. O'CONNORI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—(1) Whether he is aware that, of the two sanitary authorities within the Derry Union, the urban seeks to throw upon the rural the burden of providing for the poorer classes of persons afflicted with infectious diseases; (2) whether he is also aware that the urban sanitary authority recently erected a hospital entirely isolated, which is to be used only for better-to-do persons; (3) and whether the Local Government Board can take any steps to prevent the urban authority refusing to take the poor into their own hospital because they are poor?
MR. J. MORLEY(1) It is the duty of a Board of Guardians, as the guardians of the poor, to make provision for the treatment of the sick poor suffering from infectious disease within their district. They cannot transfer any share of this responsibility to the urban authority. (2) the Londonderry Urban Authority have, under section 155 of the Public Health Act, provided a hospital for the treatment of patients suffering from infectious disease within their district, but they can determine the class of persons they will admit to such hospital. (3) The Local Government Board cannot take any steps as suggested by my hon. Friend in the third paragraph, but it is open to the Guardians, as a Rural Sanitary Authority, to approach the Urban Authority and endeavour to make an arrangement with them under the section above referred to, to admit poor persons to their hospital in terms to be agreed to by both authorities.