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The assistance which might be required for naval sick and wounded at Hong Kong has already been alluded to.
6. In determining the methods of meeting the foregoing requirements, the first point to consider will be the extent to which existing hospitals can be expanded. To take examples from the proposals in the report under consideration, it would clearly be simpler to expand the Government Civil Hospital, so far as it is practicable to do so, by constructing matshed annexes in its Compound, and augmenting the hospital staff as required, than to create new hospitals in such buildings as the City Hall, or even in matsheds in the Happy Valley, where all organization and accessories would have to be extemporized. Perhaps hospital accommodation of the latter description could be treated as reserve accommodation to be resorted to as necessity dictated.
7. The apportionment between the various civil and military departments of the work of erecting matsheds, lighting, furnishing, and equipping the additional hospital accommodation will require careful consideration. The ultimate incidence of cost cannot be taken as a guide in this matter, the principle to be followed being that indi- cated in paragraph 20 of the Colonial Defence Committee's Remarks No. 340 R, on the 1903 Defence Scheme, viz., that the various services should be administered by the departments best able to undertake them, and that disbursements should be made, without reference to the ultimate incidence of the particular charges, by the District Paymaster in the case of a service administered by the military authorities, and by the Colonial Treasurer in the case of one administered by a Colonial Department, ali pay- ments being subject to re-adjustment between the Imperial and Colonial Governments at the close of a war.
8. As regards staff, it is necessary to base the arrangements in the Defence Scheme on the number of medical officers and attendants that can be made available locally. It is useless to count on the services of personnel which would not be present at Hong Kong when the emergency arose.
The Principal Civil Medical Officer will, doubtless, recommend civilian medical practitioners, &c., to serve in the military and naval hospitals, besides providing for the requirements of the increased civil hospital accommodation. The arrangements under which naval patients, who had been transferred on emergency for treatment in civil or military hospitals, would be visited periodically by a naval medical officer for purposes of official returns, &c., would require consideration; and similar arrange- ments would be necessary if military patients were admitted to civil hospitals.
9. As regards stores, the Army Medical Staff at Hong Kong requisition from home two years in advance, and have always a minimum of one year's supply of drugs, &c., for the normal peace garrison. Similar arrangements made in the case of the Civil Hospital would probably go far to meeting the war requirements without entailing loss by deterioration. The question of naval medical stores will also require consideration. It is desirable that the stores which would be available locally on mobilization should be sufficient to last for a period of, say, two months without replenishment from oversea. This may prove to be the case when the arrangements have been reconsidered on the basis of the requirements now pointed out.
August 9, 1904.
(Signed)
J. E. CLAUSON, Secretary,
Colonial Defence Committee:
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