ANNEXURE 1.
Tsan Yuk Hospital-Report
for the year 1950.
The attached numerical summary indicates, in concise form, the amount and the nature of the work carried out in the Tsan Yuk Hospital during the year under review.
1.
The following features are of interest:
Record number of admissions. The total number of admissions to the Hospital during the year 1950 constitutes a record for any single year since the Hospital was first opened. No fewer than 5,385 patients gained entrance into the Hospital, of whom 5,106 were delivered of babies. The words "gained entrance" are used advisedly, for so great and so constant is the strain upon the number of beds available that many hundreds of patients had to be turned away and advised to seek admission elsewhere.
3. High percentage of patients receiving antenatal care. Close upon 90% of the patients received antenatal care. This has been a very encouraging factor in the work as it affords concrete evidence of the increasing realization of the patients that antenatal care has something of value to offer, even if it is no more than a guarantee of admission to the Hospital in due course. The actual percentages of patients receiving antenatal care during recent years are as follows:
1939
1940
1941
1947
1948
1949
1950
8.0%
27.3%
30.7%
69.5%
76.9%
85.4% 89.2%
3. Low Maternal Mortality Rate, Only two deaths occurred during the year.
One was a case of broncho-pneumonia and the other was a patient who died from cerebral hemorrhage complicating eclampsia. This gives the very low tnortality rate of 0.39 per thousand.
4. Low Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Rate. It will be noted that the Stillbirth Rate was 17.05 per thousand, and that the Neo-natal Death Rate was 16.95 per thousand live and still-births. This makes the total figure of fetal and infantile deaths 34.0 per thousand live and still-births, which is a considerable improvement on last year's figure of 43.4 per
90
thousand. This is due in part to the treatment of many of the premature infants by means of four efficient incubators with thermostatic control of temperature and humidity. These incubators were provided from special funds available to the University.
5. New Antenatal Ward. A special 10-bed Antenatal Ward was added to the Hospital during the year. This was made possible by the vacation of premises formerly occupied by the Western District Chinese Public Dispensary,
6. The 50,000th Baby. On March 24th, 1950 the 50,000th baby to be born in the Tsan Yuk Hospital (since the University Obstetrical Unit was organized in 1925) was delivered. At an informal ceremony held at the Hospital early in July, at which the Director of Medical & Health Services, the Vice-Chancellor of the University and various members of the past and present staff of the Tsan Yuk Hospital were present, a silver cup and spoon were presented to the mother on behalf of her baby. The mother might be described as a typiçal Tsan Yuk Hospital patient. Her first baby was born in the Tsan Yuk Hospital two years previously. Her second baby happened to be the 50,000th delivery in the Hospital. She attended the Hospital on four occasions for antenatal care. She had a perfectly normal course in hospital and went home with a very fine baby girl weighing slightly more than the average birth weight of Chinese babies.
7 Need for a New Hospital. From the figures presented in this report it is manifest that there is a crying need for a new hospital. With the limited facilities and bed space of the Tsan Yuk Hospital we are trying to cope with an annual turnover of work which exceeds in magni- tude that done by the famous Rotunda Hospital in Dublin. There is an urgent need for a new hospital with 200 beds. Now that the adjacent site of the old Chinese Public Dispensary is vacant there is a genuine and vital demand for the erection of a modern and superlatively equipped maternity hospital to serve the populous and needy area in which the Taan Yuk Hospital is situated. No better use of public funds could be made than for this object, which would combine an invaluable service to the local community with the provision of ideal training facilities for the large numbers of pupil midwives and the successive generations of medical students who receive their training in obstetrics in this hospital.
GORDON KING,
Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Consultant to Government,
91
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