Section 10
Director-General may require information from medical practitioners etc.
(1)
The Director-General may, for the purpose of investigating into any outbreak or suspected outbreak of an infectious disease, preventing the spread of an infectious disease, or treating any person who is, or is suspected to be, a case or carrier or contact of an infectious disease —
(a)
require any medical practitioner to obtain from his patient such information as the Director-General may reasonably require for that purpose and transmit such information to the Director-General;
and
(b)
with the approval of the Minister, prescribe by order any general or specific measures or procedures for that purpose for compliance by any medical practitioner, hospital, medical clinic, clinical laboratory or healthcare establishment.
(2)
Any person who fails to comply with a requirement or an order referred to in subsection (1) is guilty of an offence.
(3)
A patient of a medical practitioner who fails to provide the medical practitioner or a person acting on his behalf with any information sought from the patient pursuant to a requirement under subsection (1)(a)
that is within the patient’s knowledge is guilty of an offence.
(4)
A medical practitioner shall comply with a requirement under subsection (1)(a) to transmit information to the Director-General notwithstanding any restriction on the disclosure of information imposed by any written law, rule of law, rule of professional conduct or contract; and he shall not by so doing be treated as being in breach of any such restriction notwithstanding anything to the contrary in that law, rule or contract.
(5)
In this section —
“clinical laboratory” means any premises used or intended to be used for any type of examination of the human body or of any matter derived therefrom for the purpose of providing information for the diagnosis, prevention or treatment of any disease or for the assessment of the health of any person, or for ascertaining the cause of death or the result of any medical or surgical treatment given to any person;
Infectious Diseases 16
“healthcare establishment”
means any premises or conveyance —
(a)
which is used or intended to be used for the provision of any service, or for carrying out any practice or procedure, that is related to the diagnosis, treatment or care of persons suffering from any disease, injury or disability; and
(b)
which is declared by the Minister, by order published in the Gazette, to be a healthcare establishment for the purposes of this Act;
“medical clinic” means any premises used or intended to be used by a medical practitioner, dentist or any other person —
(a)
for the diagnosis or treatment of persons suffering from, or believed to be suffering from, any disease, injury or disability of mind or body; or
(b)
for curing or alleviating any abnormal condition of the human body by the application of any apparatus, equipment, instrument or device requiring the use of electricity, heat or light.