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( 52 )
Taking the Straits Settlements, the Principal Civil Medical Officer there receives $7,200 a year with house and horse allowance as against the pay here of $5,400 a year rising to $6,000.
I would respectfully submit that the present pay is scarcely commensurate with the responsibility and the duties the Principal Civil Medical Officer has to perform as head of the Medical and the Sanitary Departments.
I would also suggest that the Senior Assistant Surgeon be termed Superintendent of the Government Civil Hospital and that he receives a somewhat larger salary, say $4,800 a year, as he would be responsible for the working of the Government Civil Hospital, the Lunatic Asylums and the Maternity Hospital.
In epidemic times one of the Assistant Surgeons should be Resident Medical Officer to Kennedy Town Hospital.
This is now a necessity and one which it has not been able, with our small staff, hitherto to arrange for, and it can only be done if my suggestion that another Assistant Surgeon be obtained is approved of.
I attach a comparative statement of the Medical Staff here and at Singapore.
Finally, I think the title of " Assistant Surgeon" as applied to the Officers of the Medical Department should be abolished and they be styled "Colonial Surgeons." The term "Assistant Surgeon" is now chiefly, if not entirely, used to designate native practitioners trained in India.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
J. M. ATKINSON, Principal Civil Medical Officer.
The Honourable
THE COLONIAL SECRETARY.
YOUR EXCELLENCY,
Appendix VI.
Minute by the Honourable the Colonial Secretary.
This matter requires careful consideration. All departments should be properly manned, and if the Medical Staff is undermanned it should be strengthened. To faci- litate a consideration of this question, I attach a Report of the Committee which consi- dered the Medical Establishment in 1895, the year after the great serious outbreak of plague in this Colony. I am inclined to think that a reference of this question to another Committee would be the most satisfactory method of dealing with it except that the only points to be decided now are:-
(1.) Whether a Second Assistant Surgeon should be appointed.
(2.) Whether the salary of the Principal Civil Medical Officer and Dr. BELL
should be increased.
Perhaps these points could be decided in Executive Council without much trouble.
J. H. S. L.
19-9-01.