Appendix A.
MEDICAL COMMITTEE.
Meeting held 15th January, 1895.
Present:-Dr. KNOTT, Deputy-Inspector General, R.N.H., Chairman.
Surgeon-Colonel A. F. PRESTON.
Hon. A. MCCONACHIE.
Dr. JAMES CANTLIE.
Mr. J. THURBURN.
Dr. AYRES, Colonial Surgeon, called.
THE PRESIDENT.-Dr. AYRES, will you be good enough to give the Committee a general idea of your daily routine of duty?
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Dr. AYRES.—I must premise what I have got to say by stating that I have got to attend at their own homes all Government officers drawing under $2,000 a year, if requested. On the Caine Road level I have got 79 patients, of whom 41 are children. I take these in my morning round; if I am pressed I generally take these early in the morning starting out at half-past seven o'clock. From eight to ten I am supposed to be at home to receive out-patients-that is to say, patients coming in from the out-stations who then go down and report at the office after seeing me. I receive letters and summonses for the day or letters from long distances-patients saying how they are going on and whether they require visiting that day or whether I can put it off to another day. At ten o'clock I take a run round the Caine Road level as far as Fairlea; I have got two patients there in No. 7 Station and I take several stations en route. Then I come back to the Hospital. I ought to be at the Government Civil Hospital at 11.30. Then I see my own hospital patients; on an average we have 500 out-patients a month. Then I have the women; and then I go up to the office and I see the out-patients there and see who have come in and examine any men who have come up. I examine them first on entering the Force-a full examination--and then again three and six months after. They have to be vaccinated. No applicant for Government service, European, Indian, or Chinese, is accepted without being examined. After I have settled up all the out-work I have the books, signing up all discharges and admissions, cheques received for payments, the account books, check all the pay sheets which have to be in duplicate; in fact, I have to make several hundreds of signatures every month in the office.
THE PRESIDENT.-That is at the Civil Hospital?
Dr. AYRES.-Yes. Then I give the clerks the letters I have prepared for them to be copied and forwarded to the Government. Then I take the Queen's Road level, and, as I come along, I am often called in to the Supreme Court to the Attorney General's, the Crown Solicitor's and the Registrar General's--they often want to consult me-and sometimes I am called into the Post Office and so on. I may even have to come up to the Government Offices for some reason or other. I forgot I have a new duty. After the Government Civil Hospital, I have got to go to the Tung Wah Hospital every day, Sundays included. There is a special ward there that used to be the insane ward and is now laid out as a reception ward; there I examine every new reception and diagnose the case as far as possible, and those I am uncertain about are put into a special ward