!
is a sick bay and a doctor visits regularly and conducts out- patient clinics and sick parades. Specialist services are available in the same manner, The Queen Mary Hospital iş equipped with a special detention ward to which prisoners requiring more serious medical or surgical treatment can be admitted. A clinical laboratory was established in conjunction with the clinic at Victoria Remand Prison during 1954 to handle the simpler types of investigations and 224 such investigations were made. The officers of the Dental service make periodic visits. All prison inmates are regularly X-rayed and blood tested for evidence of venereal disease, as already reported. The prison medical officers supervise the general hygienic condi- tions of the prison and cook houses, etc. During the year the hed strength of the Stanley Prison Hospital was increased to 70, and 592 prisoners were admitted for treatment. The average stay in hospital was 27 days. The number of more serious cases transferred to other hospitals was 24, 11 of these to the Queen Mary Hospital and 18 to the Mental Hospital. Only 6 deaths occurred in prison, 2 of them being suicides. There were in addition 5 judicial executions and I prisoner died in Queen Mary Hospital to which he had been transferred with a serious surgical condition. Drug addiction amongst prisoners is always a major problem and 2,086 addicts were treated during the year. Tuberculosis is also always very prevalent; 232 new cases were detected while the average number of tuberculosis cases in prison at any one time was 106. Fewer prisoners were found to be suffering from venereal diseases this year, there being only 2,749 cases compared with 3,757 in the previous year. The Dental Surgeons treated 369 prisoners at their fornightly visits. Only 19,943 prisoners attended sick parades during the year as compared with 35,266 in the previous year, the average parade being only 65 and mainly for very minor injuries or ailments. As the total number of prisoners committed to Stanley Prison during 1954 was 5,174 and the daily average population 2,099, these figures do not indicate any unusual morbidity. The hospital at Lai Chi Kok Female Prison is little more than a sick bay. It has only one 12 bed ward and a single bed maternity room with an examination room used also as a dispensary and out-patient
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clinic. During the year 185 cases were admitted to this small hospital, 6 of whom were maternity cases for delivery, 34 were suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis, and 37 were drug addicts. In addition to the medical services mentioned above for prisoners the Medical Department also holds special clinics for prison staff and their dependants.
VI.
THE OUT-PATIENT SERVICES
84. The work done in the various out-patient clinics during the year borders on the fantastic. At the main clinics doctors work in shifts from 9, a.m. to midnight continuously and on the average each doctor sees one patient every 2 to 3 minutes. Patients are expected to pay $1 per visit, a step introduced some years ago with a view to deterring irresponsible visits for trivial causes; but the volume of work continues to increase yearly. The main out-patient centres are at Sai Ying Pun and Violet Peel Health Centres on the Island and at Kowloon Hospital on the mainland. The opening of the new Police Medical Post in Kowloon, the Maurine Grantham Health Centre in the New Territories, and other subsidiary small clinics has somewhat relieved the pressure on the Kowloon Hospital out- patient department but nevertheless 499,403 attendances were recorded at the latter institution. Pressure of work at the Saï Ying Pun out-patient department is equally heavy. Thanks once more to the continuing generosity of the Jockey Club it is hoped shortly to erect a multi-storied building to accommodate the work now being done at this clinic. The Sai Ying Pun clinic serves as a field training centre for medical students studying at the University of Hong Kong. Conditions at the Violet Peel Health Centre are little better although this building was built comparatively recently and began to function just before the out-break of the Pacific War. The pressure of work completely swamps the available space and facilities and it has been found necessary to extend the waiting space by erecting shelters outside the building to protect the queues. At the Violet Feel Health Centre alone over 196,000 patients attended the regular day clinics and over 90,000 the late evening clinics.
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