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Lunatics in private families and charitable establishments.
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206.—(1) If it comes to the knowledge of the Commissioners that any person appears to be without an order and certificates detained or treated as a lunatic or alleged lunatic by any person receiving no payment for the charge, or in any charitable, religious, or other establishment (not being an institution for lunatics), they may require the person by whom the patient is detained, or the superintendent or principal officer of the establishment, to send to them, within or at such time or times as the Commissioners may appoint, a report or periodical reports by a medical practitioner of the mental and bodily condition of the patient, with all such other particulars as to him and his property as they think fit.
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(2) Any one or more of the Commissioners may at any time visit any such patient and report the result of the visit to the Commissioners, and may exercise, with respect to such patient, all the powers (except that of discharge) given to them as to persons confined in any institution for lunatics, or as single patients.
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(3) The Commissioners may, if they think fit, transmit any reports received by them, or may report the results of any inquiries made by them under this section, to the Lord Chancellor, who may thereupon make an order for the discharge of the patient from the custody in which he is detained or for his removal to an institution for lunatics, or to such other custody as he may think fit, and the expenses properly incurred of carrying any such order into effect and of maintaining the patient if so removed shall, if the order so directs, be paid by the guardians of the union in which the patient was found, until the authority legally liable for his maintenance has been ascertained; and such guardians shall have the same right to recover any such expenses paid by them against the lunatic and his estate, and the person or authority legally liable for his maintenance as in the case of orders for maintenance under this Act.
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(4) Where an order is made by the Lord Chancellor under this section for removal of a lunatic to an asylum, any justice of the county or borough in which the asylum is may exercise all the authorities conferred upon a justice by this Act, for the purpose of making the lunatic’s property applicable to his maintenance and for maintaining him as a pauper.
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(5) All reports and particulars sent to the Commissioners under this section shall be kept by them, and shall be open to inspection only by the Commissioners and the Lord Chancellor, and by such persons as the Lord Chancellor directs.
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