Revised Laws of Saint Lucia (2023)

Medical Relief Rules – Section 16 (Gazettes 2 March 1912, 16 October 1913, S.I. 16/1924, 4/1928 and 63/1940)

Gazette 2 March 1912

Amended by Gazette 16 October 1913

Amended by S.I. 16/1924, 4/1928, 63/1940

Commencement [2 March 1912]

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   1.   In these Rules—

“dispensary” and “dispenser” mean respectively a Government dispensary and a Government dispenser;

“distributor of tickets” or “distributor” means every magistrate, every minister of the Anglican, Roman Catholic and Methodist Churches, every town clerk or warden of a town or village, the Commissioner of Police, every poor relief officer attached to a police station and every person appointed by the Governor General to be a distributor of tickets.

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   2.   It is the duty of every medical officer within his or her district—

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      (a)     to afford free medical aid to all paupers, workers' children under 14 years of age, workers over 60 years of age, persons suffering from yaws, and destitute women in childbirth;

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      (b)     and to afford medical aid in all cases of serious illness, without demanding prepayment of any fee; but this shall not debar him or her from afterwards recovering payment from persons not entitled to free medical aid.

“Serious illness” means illness where immediate medical aid is imperatively required to avert serious consequences to the patient.

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   3.   Medical officers shall attend at the places and on the days and at the hours specified in Schedule 1 to these Rules for the purpose of giving medical aid to such persons as are entitled thereto. Medical officers are not required to attend on Sundays or on public holidays; but where attendances at any place are fixed for one day a week, or at longer intervals, and any specified day for attendance is a public holiday, the medical officer shall attend at that place on the next succeeding day which is not a public holiday, a Sunday or a specified day for attendance at another place. For the purpose of ensuring the attendance of patients on the substituted day, the medical officer shall request the officer in charge of the police station nearest to the place of attendance to make known in the neighbourhood thereof his or her intention to attend on the substituted day and the police officer shall thereupon make the same known accordingly.

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   4.   Workers are entitled to medical aid according to the tariffs of fees hereinafter mentioned.

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   5.   The following shall be the tariff of fees to be paid to medical officers for professional services rendered to workers—

   	$	¢
   For medical attendance, if at the medical officer's house or at the appointed station, by day		24
   At the medical officer's house at night (i.e., between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m.)		48
   For a day visit to a patient's house that does not require the medical officer to travel more than one mile from the place at which he or she received the call		48
   For a day visit to a patient's house that requires the medical officer to travel more than one mile and not more than 3 miles from the place at which he or she received the call		72
   For a day visit to a patient's house that requires the medical officer to travel more than 3 miles from the place at which he or she received the call		96
   For a night visit to a patient's house that does not require the medical officer to travel more than one mile from the place at which he or she received the call		96
   For a night visit to a patient's house that requires the medical officer to travel more than one mile from the place at which he or she received the call	1	44

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   6.   

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      (1)     For medicine supplied on a medical officer's prescription for a worker a fee of $0.12 shall be paid.

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      (2)     Where no private pharmacy exists outside of Castries any Government Dispenser in the locality or in the vicinity thereof shall with the sanction of the Governor General supply medicines to persons other than workers on a medical officer's prescription, charging for the same the cost of the medicine so supplied.

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   7.   Medical officers shall prescribe remedies in reasonable quantities having regard to the distance of the patient from the Dispensary, the nature of the disease and the actual cost of the prescription.

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   8.   

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      (1)     Every prescription shall be in Form A in Schedule 2 to these Rules, and the medical officer shall note on it whether there is no charge or a charge of $0.12, and in the latter case whether the payment of the charge is deferred.

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      (2)     In any case where the cost of the medicine supplied is to be paid by a person other than a worker, a medical officer shall also note on the prescription that the cost of the medicine supplied is to be paid in such case.

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   9.   On presentation of a prescription duly signed by the medical officer, and in the case of a prescription which is not free of charge or the payment for which is not deferred, on receipt of the fee (of $0.12), the dispenser shall compound and supply the medicines ordered and shall also, if a ticket is presented, sign the same in the place provided for that purpose.

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   10.   

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      (1)     A dispenser on receiving the fee of $0.12 on a prescription shall deliver a receipt for the same in the Form B in Schedule 2 to these Rules, and he or she shall keep an account thereof in a cash book in the Form C in the said Schedule.

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      (2)     The provisions of this rule shall with the necessary modifications apply to receipts for and entries in the cash book in respect of prescriptions and the cost of the medicine supplied to persons other than workers.

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   11.   

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      (1)     Dispensers shall at least once a week lodge in the Treasury or District Revenue Office all prescription fees received by them and shall produce to the treasury officer, in proof of the amount payable, their cash books and the prescriptions, payment tickets and receipt counterfoils.

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      (2)     If upon examination the above are found correct, the treasury officer shall initial the cash book and requisition, and receive the amount. He or she shall make a note of any prescription missing from the series and communicate it to the medical officer for inquiry.

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   12.   A medical officer may, in his or her discretion issue free of payment prescriptions, without the intervention of a distributor, if he or she is satisfied that the patient is a person entitled to free medical aid or is a worker as the case may be.

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   13.   Distributors of tickets shall be supplied with a copy of these Rules and with books of tickets with counterfoils as follows—

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      (a)     tickets for persons entitled to free medical aid, termed “Free tickets,” which shall be printed on blue paper and shall be in the Form D in Schedule 2 to these Rules;

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      (b)     tickets for workers, termed “Payment Tickets,” which shall be printed on white paper and shall be in the Form E in Schedule 2 to these Rules;

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      (c)     tickets for workers, termed “Distributors' Deferred Payment Tickets,” which shall be printed on yellow paper and shall be in the Form F in Schedule 2 to these Rules.

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   14.   Upon the application of any worker, or any trustworthy person on his or her behalf, for the issue of a Deferred Payment Ticket, the distributor shall require him or her or the person applying on his or her behalf to make and subscribe the declaration on the back of the ticket, and shall also require that some person who is in a position to pay the fees of the medical officer and the fees for medicine do subscribe his or her name as guarantor to the guarantee on the back of the said ticket. On this being complied with the distributor shall issue the ticket.

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   15.   In the case of any person entitled to free medical aid, or any worker, who is unable to attend at the place appointed for attendance by the medical officer under rule 3 by reason of serious illness or infirmity the distributor shall make and sign a note to that effect on the back of the ticket.

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   16.   

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      (1)     A free ticket or payment ticket covers all necessary visits, consultations and prescriptions while the same illness lasts, the appropriate fee being payable under a payment ticket for every visit, consultation or prescription during such illness.

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      (2)     A deferred payment ticket covers only one visit, consultation or prescription, unless the declaration or guarantee is so altered by the distributor at the time it is made as to include the payment of fees for all necessary visits, consultations and prescriptions.

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   17.   

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      (1)     It is the duty of the medical officer to attend to the holder of a deferred payment ticket without prepayment of his or her fee and to issue a prescription for the supply of necessary medicines, and if the medical officer's fee according to the tariff and the fee of $0.12 for medicine are not paid to the medical officer within 6 weeks from the date of the ticket he or she may prepare a bill in duplicate annexing the ticket thereto, and send it to the clerk of a district court in his or her medical district for collection, with costs. The magistrate of that court shall thereupon proceed with the collection of the amount claimed, with costs, without requiring the attendance of the medical officer in court.

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      (2)     It is the duty of the police officer in charge of the police station in the town or village where that court is situate to see to the collection in that court of all deferred payment fees.

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      (3)     It is the duty of every magistrate to send to the Administrator, within 14 days after the expiration of each quarter of the year, a return of all such fees uncollected in the Court, application for collection of which has been lodged by a medical officer within that quarter, with a short explanation of the reason why each such fee is uncollected at the date of the return.

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      (4)     Medical officers shall be entitled to receive all such fees in priority to the costs and charges of recovering the same; and on receipt of fees for medicines they shall pay them to the dispenser who supplied the medicines.

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   18.   

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      (1)     Medical officers shall be supplied with books of tickets with counterfoils, termed “Medical Officers Deferred Payment Tickets” which tickets may be used by a medical officer in the case of any person who, in the opinion of the medical officer is a “worker” within the meaning of these Rules and who has not obtained a “Distributors' Deferred Payment Ticket.”

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      (2)     The following provisions shall apply to such tickets—

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         (a)     the ticket shall be in the Form G in Schedule 2 to these Rules;

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         (b)     the ticket shall be signed either by the worker or in the worker's name by the person making application therefor on his or her behalf;

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         (c)     the signature of the person making the application on behalf of the worker shall be binding on the worker;

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         (d)     if the worker or his or her agent refuses or fails to sign the ticket the medical officer shall attend the case and may sign the declaration of honour printed on the back of the ticket. The signed declaration is binding on the worker as proof of his or her liability to pay the appropriate fees;

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         (e)     the provisions of rule 17 relating to the collection of the amount due under a Distributor's Deferred Payment Ticket apply to tickets signed under this rule.

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   19.   A medical officer shall report to the Administrator every case in which he or she suspects that a free ticket is issued for a person not entitled to free medical aid.

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   20.   A medical officer shall not be at liberty to refuse to attend or prescribe for a person for whom a ticket is issued on the ground that in the medical officer's opinion the ticket ought not to have been issued by the Distributor.

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   21.   In the event of a medical officer being of opinion that a person for whom a free or deferred payment ticket has been issued does not come within the category of persons entitled to free medical aid or workers, he or she may inform the person that he or she reserves the right of recovering his or her full fee and the full value of any medicines supplied, and he or she shall be entitled to sue for the same.

Schedule 1

Places and hours for attendance of medical officers for the purpose of giving medical aid.

(Note: This Schedule, being obsolete but not replaced, is omitted.)

Schedule 2

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