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ANNEXURE M.
of work in the Almoners' Department f the Medical Department from
April 1949 to March, 1950.
last year 1949-50, the Almoners' Department y changes, and the period has been rather a esulting in a great deal of hard routine work s of the staff. The Principal Almoner, Miss n, O.B.E. left the Colony in March 1949 and the moner did not arrive until September. Another staff went to England during this period for a g and the Acting Principal Almoner was forced h more responsibility than before and with a Nevertheless by April 1960, the Medico-Social able to look back upon a year of hard work ievement.
re now in attendance at the following hospitals
spital
zulosis Clinic ................... entre O.P.D.
rclinic
#almoners.
Hospital.
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JIP
orium,
al, Cheung Chau, t Hospital
Ter
visiting almoners.
Medical Headquarters.
student almoners were appointed to the Depart- Der 1949 with pay. Seven additional students ke a year's course of training under the auspices a' Department, These trainees have attended es given by the Supervisor and Training Officer es, the Sister Tutor, Queen Mary Hospital by and by the Principal Almoner. They have also vixits of observation to local factories, welfare ges and other institutions. Further experience g and interviewing has been gained with the Society, with the Society for the Protection of
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A
+
167
All these students are graduates of Chinese universities and have taken sociology or economics as their major subject.
The Almoners' Department, with the help of the Supervisor and Training Officer for Health Nurses, has also dealt with the appointment and training of six new Tuberculosis Workers who are attached to the Harcourt Tuberculosis clinic. There are now twelve such workers under the direction of the almoners at the Harcourt Clinic.
3. General Work.
Although medico-social work has, in itself, not developed greatly within the hospitals this year owing to the need for retrenchment, nevertheless assistance has been given to patients in need in the following ways:
(a) Repatriation,
In many cases patients come from China into Hong Kong for a few years, are ill, have treatment, and then desire to return to their home village. They are, as a rule, destitute, and the almoner sees that they are either taken by police or relations to the border, and that they have enough money and clothes to travel back to China.
(b) Artificial limbs and other surgical appliances. These are supplied to those patients who need them, funds being provided, where necessary, either by Government or from the Almoner's Samaritan Fund.
Some of the artificial limbs have been obtained from New Zealand, America and England; but orders are as a rule placed with local men, one of whom has himself lost a limb and makes surgical appliances as his only means of livelihood.
(c) Hawkers* Licences.
Recommendations for hawkers' licences are made by the almoners, and in suitable cases these licences are granted to patients. This enables many an injured or incapacitated patient to obtain a living where otherwise he would find employ- ment impossible.
(d) Maintenance of Children.
The Medico-Social Department has made arrangements during the year for the maintenance of children of patients, or of children who have been patients, in Homes and Crèches in the neighbourhood. In most cases Homes agree to have these children free of cost, but for a few the parents, if known, will pay.
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