41
IX.-MEDICO SOCIAL WELFARE ACTIVITIES.
174. At the end of the financial year ending April 1948, the relief section of the Medical Department was handed over to the Social Welfare Officer and the welfare activities of the Medical Department were confined to medico social work under the direc- tion of the Principal Almoner with a staff of 3 Almoners and 7 Probationer Assistant Almoners and 3 students in training.
175. The members of the Almoners Department are placed at the following institutions:
Medical Headquarters-Govenument
Supervisor
Queen Mary Hospital Kowloon Hospital
ЧЬ
Harcourt Tuberculosis Clinic
Sai Ying Pun Centre
Violet Peel Polyclinic
**
1 (Principal Almoner)
4 3
Lai Chi Kok (Post vacant, Visiting Almoners only)
176. Advice and material assistance was given to patients
in need in the following ways:
...
Repatriation to the country.
b. Supply of artificial limbs and other surgical appli-
Bnces.
Recommendation for howker licences.
d. Maintenance of children in homes, crèches etc,
4
Temporary financial assistance and the supply of clothes and food.
7. L'ommunication with relativos of patients in other
territorien.
Advice on employment etc.
177. Close co-operation with other social welfare work in other Government departments was oraintained and reports ou all industrial accidents admitted to the hospitals or treated in the out-patients were made to the Labour Office. Road accidents were similarly reported to the Police Department.
178. Close co-operation was also maintained with the non- Government welfare organisations such as the Families Welfare Society and Salvation Army, Reference to the special work associated with the Tuberculosis Clinic will be found in Aunexure
179. An attempt has been made to institute an after-care system for patients discharged from the Mental Hospital and efforts have also been made to place mentally defective women in suitable institutions.
180. At the end of the period under review, Miss M. S. Walson, M.B.E., Principal Almoner, who built up the Almoners sub-department from its beginning, resigned on marriage.
46
X-TRAINING OF PERSONNEL.
181. It is the aim of the Medical Department to train its own technical officers as far as possible up to the standards set in the United Kingdom. In some cases reciprocity has been achieved and in others it is hoped that reciprocity will not be long delayed. 182. Table 28 sets out the various technical groups who have received training from the department with their relative strengths:
by
Probationer Masseuses
Assistants
Radiographic
Probationer Dispensers
++
Laboratory
TABLE 28
Appoint-
Resigna-
Strength
at 31.3.49
Assistants
Probationer Health Inspectors
SQUSHLI
I
S
1
20
tions
1
ச
N
13
*
20
Assistant Almoners
"
(Students in training)
+
3
Probationer Nurses
23
18
B4
Midwives
22
15
21
Dressers
17
30
183. The training of dressers and nurses was continued but only one nurse and one dresser passed the final qualifying examination. This small number was due to the fact that those who were probationers in training before the war have now com pleted their course and the post-war group have not yet reached the stage of sitting for their final examination.
184. 22 Midwives, 16 of whom were registered nurses passed the final examination.
185.
A number of health inspectors sat for examinations held by the Board of Examiners of the Royal Sanitary Institute (Hong Kong Centre) and of them 14 qualified for the Sanitory Inspectors Certificate and 19 for the Certificate in Tropical Hygiene.