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earning fairly substantial incomes as they have in Ceylon where they get a great deal of private work.
Mr. AMERY: Do they take advantage of the half-pay study leave?
Mr. ALEXANDER: All of them take advantage of the first scheme, which is, that in order to get British qualifications they must go through the course in England. When they do that they become Grade 1 officers and then such other post-graduate courses as they undertake are undertaken by themselves at their own expense. We do not help them towards those at all.
Mr. AMERY: Not even with half-pay leave?
Mr. ALEXANDER: No, Sir. To a great many we have refused passage allowances, but they are all men who are very highly qualified and enjoying very substantial private practices. Mr. AMERY: You do not think it necessary to encourage them to qualify themselves further by allowing them study leave?
Mr. ALEXANDER: We thought they were sufficiently re- munerated by being allowed private practice.
Mr. AMERY: From the point of view of the Colony the private practice is not necessarily such an advantage to the Colonial Service as the man bringing himself up to date by special courses.
Mr. ALEXANDER: We find they do go in for those special courses without our having to pay for them.
Mr. ROBERTSON: As happens in Barbados where there are no real Government medical officers, but there are District medical officers employed in various places. Everyone of them when they go on leave has to provide for relief out of his own pocket. They are not allowed to go on leave unless they can find someone as relief, and they always take a refresher course so far as I know. I am very anxious that a strong resolution should be passed at this Conference because I find it difficult to induce the Government to accept a similar principle in the case of other officers whom I do want to get study leave.
Mr. JARVIS: In the East African Medical Service there is some difficulty arising out of the additional period during which medical officers are away from their posts. I suggest six months' full-pay leave after 23 years' service. It takes them a month to get home and a month to come out, and the courses, some of which are optional and some compulsory, may extend to three months or more and this causes difficulty owing to shortage of staff. That is the only objection we find to these courses. Sir HORACE BYATT: The difference is this, that in a place like East Africa the medical staff is recruited entirely from England. It consists of men probably born in England, whose permanent home is in England and whose connections are in England, and they come home on leave as often as possible and apply for extensions, but that is not the case in Trinidad. Our medical staff in Trinidad consists almost entirely-I believe, speaking without the book, that the Surgeon-General is the only exception-consists of men born in the Island, many of them Chinese or half-bred Chinese. Now, these men have qualified by means of Government scholarships which enable them to go home, and, having acquired their qualifications, they think that it is no longer important to them to return to England. The staff is not sufficiently large to allow of our sending them away. There would be no great disposition on their part to go, and probably the local Legislature would be loth to grant money for the purpose of giving them opportunity for further study. The Government has already paid for their scholarships, and the Legislature would be unwilling to grant considerable sums of money to send them to England on study leave.
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Mr. ROBERTSON: It is for that reason particularly that I thought that an expression of opinion from this Conference might induce them to change their minds.
Mr. AMERY: I think the view of the Conference is possibly that if material inducement were to be held out in connection with the research pool scheme that might be possible.
Mr. MARRIOTT: In addition to the half pay we pay the fees and under the present arrangement give them £4 58. a week during the course.
Mr. AMERY: It goes a little way towards full pay.
Dr. STANTON: The Malayan rule provides an allowance for the study period of £4 5s. a week, but the East African Governments provide an allowance in addition to full pay on extended leave.
Mr. BOTTOMLEY: Five shillings a day.
Mr. MARRIOTT I think we took it from East Africa to bring it into line.
Mr. BOTTOMLEY: With regard to the £3 a week, that is only paid to people going for instruction on first appointment on going out.
Mr. POPHAM LOBB: I do not speak for the Windward Islands, but I served seven years there, and I should like to bring to notice one point. We have there probably what is the largest body of badly paid medical officers anywhere in the Colonies, and there is an enormous amount of disease. It is precisely in those Islands that you want to recruit the best medical service you can get. But because the salaries are so inadequate, and also because, as Sir Horace Byatt has pointed out, the medical staff in the smaller islands is almost exclusively recruited from local men, these men do not go on leave. It is there you get the worst medical service where you want the best, and I wish we could have in such a case some system such as has been suggested with regard to agricultural and forestry officers a pool which would enable you to have medical officers of the proper standard.
Mr. AMERY: It was agreed in the previous discussion on the research pool that that should cover medical research, and research officers would be available for the poorer Colonies.
Mr. OLIPHANT: There is one objection in the Colony I represent, that the Government sometimes gives such leave and the man is immediately afterwards transferred. This recently occurred. That feeling is very strong.
Mr. RANKINE: We in East Africa are prepared to take this chance. We shall never keep our officers up to date unless we give them all the facilities we can. The cost is not worth talking about, and we get a much greater gain than the cost represents. The officers are keen to come and take this course and they come back fresh and up-to-date.
Mr. AMERY; The risk is as broad as it is long. If you lose a man, you take on another man who has had study leave in the other Colonies.
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Mr. McELDERRY: The Colonial Office has commented on this point in connection with the recent Hong Kong draft rules, The rule reads that an officer must refund any allowance that he gets in the event of his leaving the service of this Govern- ment within three years.' I am sure Hong Kong have not in view the possibility of promotion. They were thinking of the case of an officer who improves his qualifications at the expense of Hong Kong by taking medical or engineering courses or by getting called to the Bar, and then sets up in private practice and does not remain in Government service at all. We usually ask for an engagement from the officer that he will not seek to leave the service until two years afterwards. That would be like an application for transfer. He would not himself ask for a transfer.
62483d
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