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that he had been reinstated as a lecturer, but in 1916 he resigned that position, since the Chair of Surgery had been established, and could only be held with clinical rights at the Government Civil Hospital. Why Dr. Gibson was treated as Mr. Pearce said 'shabbily', is not known, although in Dr. Mitchell's eyes, there had been no necessary connection between the LMS and medical education, and he had warned against any expectation of a linkage." The effect, however, was to remove the students from the institution of the Alice, and with it, the main rationale justifying the exclusion of the lady doctor from general medical work. By this time, maternity work had grown and lack of work was no longer an issue. 94
The AMMH was most important in the establishment of Hong Kong's maternity service for several reasons: first, the resources set up were both hospital-based and domiciliary, and therefore set the parameters for subsequent development, which included hospitals, maternity clinics, and government midwives attending home births. Secondly, under the umbrella of the LMS, the place of Western medical practice amongst the Chinese people was strengthened, demand increasing in the post-World War I decades. Thirdly, female doctors acquired a primary role in service provision and thereby a career pathway for Chinese women as doctors and midwives was opened. That pathway was to extend to general nursing, although even until the 1930s at the Alice Hospital, male dressers, supervised by female European nurses, were needed to work in male wards. Fourthly, a service which was accessible to all classes of Chinese women was set in place. That is, poor women were looked after on the basis of need, whereas the wives of the wealthy Chinese subscribers were entitled to care in terms of the Lady Doctor's contract. The outcome was a service that was, as much by default from the power play between Dr. Gibson and Dr. Sibree as by intention, culturally appropriate to the Chinese community. That is, status differentials were recognised, and at the same time, the level of qualification seen as adequate for a public health-oriented service was selected, analogous to the level of training for the Chinese doctors.
The lack of continuity in the service left a gap which, with greater recognition of need, was filled by secular agencies, as the Chinese Public Dispensaries Committee set up a maternity home in Wanchai in 1919, run by Dr. Alice (Sibree) Hickling, followed by the Tsan Yuk Hospital in 1922. The Tung Wah and Kwong Wah Hospitals improved their maternity service, and domiciliary care was the province of the