Civil Liberties and Public Good: Detention of Tuberculous Patients and the Public Health Act 1984

Abstract

On 30 August 1998, the Mail on Sunday, under the headline “TB refugee ‘must be held in hospital’”, described the case of a Somalian man who had been “ordered by a court to remain in hospital for six months to prevent him spreading a highly infectious deadly disease”. That disease was tuberculosis and a court order had been issued “after the man had twice staggered into Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow, North-West London, for treatment but left without trace. He failed to take prescribed treatment and his condition rapidly deteriorated, forcing him to return to hospital a third time.”