ay examine any person suspected to be suffering from any infectious
diseases (save venereal diseases), and the Medical Officer of Health
may, if he deems it expedient in the interests of the public health,
compel the removal to a hospital of any person so suffering. This
long-established procedure as referable to venereal diseases is by
antagonists termed "compulsory examination" and "compulsory removal."

It is contended by some witnesses that notification will drive these
diseases underground; but syphilis and gonorrhoea for generations past
have been underground.

Under the present system numbers of unfortunate persons either delay
calling in medical assistance until the case has become almost desperate
so far as the patient is concerned, or they resort to unqualified
persons, with the result that in most cases what was in the first
instance a simple attack, capable of treatment, results in serious
complications most difficult to deal with. In either case the patient
may be communicating diseases to others, and should this come to the
knowledge of the Health Department it has no effective means of checking
him--no power to warn those who are being endangered by his criminal
neglect.

The Committee think there is some force in the argument that
notification by name, in the first instance, as in the case of ordinary
infectious diseases, would tend to discourage some from coming forward
for medical treatment. They recommend, therefore, the adoption of what
is known as the system of conditional notification embodied in the West
Australia Act. Under this plan the cases are notified by the doctor to
the Health Department by number or symbol only. The name is not sent in
unless the patient discontinues treatment before he is free from
infection and refuses either to go to a clinic or to another doctor. In
cases of those who "play the game," the name of the patient is kept
confidential, and does not pass beyond the medical man attending him. It
is only in cases of those who contumaciously refuse to do what is
necessary for their own safety and the safety of others that the name is
sent to the Health Department, in order that appropriate steps may be
taken in the interests of public health. Even then the name is given
only to officers who are pledged to keep it confidential.

Following are the clauses in suggestions for a Bill, drawn up by the
Health Department, which in the opinion of the Committee should in
substance be