Enclosure F.
59
The measures that have been adopted since 1894 are those which were recom- mended by the principal workers in the epidemic of 1804, by the Sanitary Board, by the Medical Advisers of the Government and which commended themselves to the Community as represented in the Legislative Council As to the Medical Staff available to help in carrying out those measures, we would point out that in 1895 a Committee consisting of Deputy Inspector General Knott, R.N., Surgeon Colonel Preston, A M.S., Mr. McConachie, Mr. Thurburn & Dr. Cautlie was appointed to enquire into the Medical Department. and that the Medical Staff' is coustituted in accordance with their recommendations with the exception that the Health Officer of the Port retains his private practice.
It must however be borne in mind that the latter officer employs an Assistant to do the work in the Harbour.
The statements that at the height of the epidemic there was one Medical Officer on dury at the Infectious Hospitals for Europeans and Asiatics at Kennedy Town who was compelled through want of accommodation to re-ide a mile from the Hospitals and whose duties also included attendance on the Prisons and the Police" and that a Civil practitioner was not appointed to relieve the official doctor of a portion of his duties until the matter had been ventilated in the Public Press are misleading.
In the first place one (and the largest) of the Plague Hospitals at Kennedy Town is a brauch of the Tung Wa Hospital and is open to Chinese only who are attended by their own native doctors. The European Medica! Officer only visits daily to exercise a general supervision.
The greatest number of cases under treatment at one and the same time in the Kennedy Town Hospital during the recent epidemic was 22. To assist him in attending on these cases the Medical Officer had 2 European Wardmasters, 2 trained. European Nurses and 1 trained Chinese Wardmaster-a medical student in his fifth year of study. The Medical Officer has never resided in the Kennedy Town Hospital-not even in 1894. He is in telephonic communication with it. The Medical Officer's duties at the Gaol occupy about one hour a day. The Police (except women--and these go to Hospital for confinement-and children of whom there are not many) go into Hospital when sick. Practically the only Police work is in connection with Post Mortem cases at the mortuary. The Medical Officer was relieved of that work on the 13th of May. At the height of the epidemic (215 cases in one week) he was relieved of the Gaol work on the recom- mendation of the Acting Principal Civil Medical Officer.
In answer to an inquiry whether the Medical Officer should be in constant attendance at Kennedy Town Hospital, the Acting Principal Civil Medi Officer advised that it was not necessary as ample trained assistance was on the__pot for any European.
Regarding the alleged insufficiency of the Sanitary Staff, we wo draw attention to the fact that it was in consequence of a recommendation made in 1899 by a Select Committee of the Sanitary Board consi-ting of the Principal Civil Medical Officer, the Medical Officer of Health (Dr. Clark) and Mr. Osborne (one of the Petitioners) based on a report by Dr. Clark himself, that the number of Sanitary Inspectors was fixed at twenty.
We append a copy of the report marked enclosure F. as it shows on what calculations the number was arrived at, and would point out that when Dr. Clark made that report he was himself sati fied, and Mr. Osborne, a Member of the Sanitary Board then and now, must have ben also satisi d. that an Inspector's visit at least once in two mouths to each floor of his district was reasonably
sufficient.