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Hospital and at the rural dispensaries at Aberdeen, Cheung Chau, Fanling, Sai Kung, San Wai, Shamshuipo, Sham Tseng, Sha Tau Kok, Shaukiwan, Stanley, Tai 0. Taipo, Un Long and Yaumati.
Owing to the difficulties attendant upon getting premises repaired and in connexion with transport, district midwifery work by government midwives was not able to be placed upon a satisfactory footing until late in the year. However, some 1,667 deliveries were managed at the fourteen centres named above in 1946.
Registration of private maternity homes was commenced in December. By the end of the year, fifty-one homes had been visited in Hong Kong and forty in Kowloon.
Shortage of housing, war dilapidations and the high cost of repairs have all combined to lower the standard of a considerable proportion of maternity homes in the Colony.
Many of the homes inspected were unhygienic, latrines were on enclosed verandahs or in kitchens and, in some, relatives shared the meagre accommodation,
The complete lack of supervision during the period of Japanese occupation resulted in a falling off in efficiency and in keeping of records by midwives in charge of these homes.
Of the 618 registrations of midwives during 1946, some eighty-seven were new graduates.
No possibility existed for restarting the much needed post-graduate courses for midwives inaugurated shortly before the Pacific War. Examinations under the aegis of the Hong Kong Midwives' Board for the midwives certificate were held in January, April, July and October.
A..
VII. HOSPITALS & DISPENSARIES.
Queen Mary Hospital.
The sixth and seventh floors of the hospital and considerable portions of the nurses home and technical and mental staff quarfers remained in occupation of the Royal Naval Authorities throughout 1946. The Medical Department has received the greatest possible help and cooperation from the Royal Naval personnel with whom relations have been uniformly cordial. In view, however, of the serious need for beds for obstetrical and gynaecological patients, it is hoped that the scheme to renovate the War Memorial Nursing Home to serve as a Royal Naval Hospital will be pro- ceeded with as soon as possible.
Inpatients to the 400 beds available for civilian patients numered 6,029. There were 345 deaths, giving a death-rate of 6.7 per centum. A total of 18,834 outpatients were dealt with at the hospital, made up as follows:-
Casualty outpatient department...
14,226
Government servants for employment or examination for the
Permanent Establishment..
3.052
Ear, nose and throat elinies.
11,131
Eye clinic
365
Antenatal clinic
61
The X-ray department alone dealt with 10,986 patients, in addition to 11,400 Royal Naval patients.
The Queen Mary Hospital served as the premier accident hospital in the Colony and the casualty department was busy throughout most of the twenty-four hours each day.
A number of post-graduate students who had received the M.B., B.S., Hong Kong, in China during the war years, attended as interns during the year in order to obtain the requisite amount of clinical experience.
B. Kowloon Hospital.
After the liberation of the Colony in August, 1945, one section of the Kowloon Hospital was allocated to the R.A.M.C. for use as a feld hospital. Early in 1946, the
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whole hospital reverted to civilian use. This hospital is made up of six beds for isolation cases, thirty-four for maternity patients and 137 for general medical and surgical cases, making 167 in all
The need for a modern hospital of at least five hundred beds on the Aren levelled for the purpose in 1940 became more apparent as the year progressed and families returned from the United Kingdom, Australia and elsewhere.
Admissions numbered 3,766 of whom, 3,360 were Chinese, 360 European and 56 of other nationality. There were 291 deaths, a mortality rate of 7.7 per centum. Of the admissions, 1,156 were maternity cases, 966 being delivered. Five maternal deaths took place, or 5.2 per thousand deliveries. Ninety-five autopsies were performed, daring the year.
Some 168,845 patients were treated at the outpatient clinics established for ante-natal, post-natal, paediatric, medical, surgical, gynaecological, ophthalmological and dental conditions.
C.
Nethersole Hospital.
The Nethersole (Alice Memorial) Hospital which was taken over from the Japanese as a government civil hospital, pending the rehabilitation of the Queen Mary Hospital, continued to function in that capacity during the year. The hospital will revert to its former status under the London Mission from the beginning of April, 1947, with the assistance of a grant-in-aid of $125,000.00 from Government for the first year of its normal post-war existence.
The maternity block was reopened in October, 1946, consequently the figures for ante-natal, infant welfare and maternity cases relate to the last two months of the year.
Cases.
The hospital provides bed accommodation of 129 of which 25 are for maternity
Inpatients numbered 2,077 of whom 173 or 8.3 per centum died. Outpatient attendances amounted to 36,866.
D.
Mental Hospital.
This hospital provides accommodation for 128 patients and had a daily average of ninety-one patients during the year.
Forty Japanese military patients were handed over to the Military Authorities for repatriation to Japan, one having died out of the original number transferred to the Mental Hospital from dark and overcrowded cells in Kowloon at the time of the liberation.
Out of the 342 patients admitted during the year, 224 were discharged, thirty- six died and sixty-two Chinese nationals were transferred to the Canton Municipal Mental Hospital on the 24th of December, 1946, by agreement with the Canton Authorities and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Republic of China.
Lack of gardening facilities and limited constituted somewhat of a hardship.
means of occupational therapy
The introduction of a 56-hour week followed later by a 48-hour week for the staff of the hospital went someway towards reducing the constant strain incidental to attendance upon mental patients.
E.
Sai Ying Pun Hospital.
With the complete destruction of Kennedy Town Infectious Diseases Hospital under Japanese rule, it became necessary to utilise the Sal Ying Pun Hospital for cases of dangerous infectious disease.
The accommodation is normally 100 beds, but it became necessary during the height of the epidemic of smallpox to increase the number to 150. Apart from eleven cases remaining in hospital at the end of 1945, some 1,637 patients were admitted. Of these 455 or 27.8% died. Amongst admissions were 467 cases of smallpox (one alastrim), 289 cholera, 103 cerebro-spinal meningitis, 64 of diphtheria and 4 of typhus,