(1) A member of the hospital staff except the steward-dispenser shall not accept the custody from any patient of any valuable for safe keeping.
(2) The steward-dispenser is authorised to receive from any patient admitted to the hospital any valuable which such patient may desire to entrust to him or her for safe keeping.
(3) The steward-dispenser shall—
(a) give the patient an official receipt for any valuable entrusted to him or her;
(b) enter in a “Patients' Valuables Register” of a kind to be prescribed by the Governor General, a full description of every such valuable, together with such further information as may be called for by the prescribed register.
(c) Keep every such valuable in a safe place and under lock and key.
(4) At the time of a discharge of a patient from hospital every valuable entrusted by him or her to the steward-dispenser shall be delivered up to him or her by that officer, and the patient shall give a receipt for the same in an appropriate place in the prescribed register.
(5) The patient shall at the same time deliver up to the steward-dispenser the receipt referred to above.
(6) If on the death of a patient in the hospital he or she is found to have been in possession of any valuable, such valuable shall be delivered to the steward-dispenser by any person finding the same. The steward-dispenser shall take possession of it, make full and accurate entry in the register and shall otherwise deal with it as if it had been a valuable duly entrusted to him or her for safe keeping.
(7) Every valuable which is entrusted to the steward-dispenser for safe keeping by a patient who subsequently dies in the hospital, or which on the death of a patient in the hospital is found to have been in his or her possession therein, shall be retained by that officer in safe keeping until disposed of under the directions of the Governor General.
(8) At the end of each month the resident surgeon shall furnish the Governor General with a return of valuables appearing in the register to the credit of patients who have died during the preceding month.
(9) All such valuables shall be deemed to be held by the steward-dispenser pending their disposition according to law, and the Governor General shall give such directions as may be necessary to ensure such disposition.
(10) The register shall be open to inspection at all times by officers of the audit department.