HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
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I wish to say a word about Head 22 (Medical Department).
The vote has been increased from round about 12 million in 1934, 1935 and 1936, to $2,140,000.00 odd (Revised Estimates for 1937), and to $2,177,000.00 (Estimates for 1938).
Here, again, the Community must be prepared to pay what is necessary to maintain a sound public health and medical organisation. But I have an uncomfortable feeling that, in spite of the large annual expenditure, medical facilities to the poor still leave much room for improvement. In particular I have received many complaints in regard to the food and lack of essential requirements, including medicine, in the third-class accommodation of the Tsan Yuk Maternity Hospital. I am informed that, with 60 beds, there are available only 3 or 4 air rings, and 3 or 4 bed-rests, in spite of the large number of serious post-operative cases. I further understand that the staple diet consists chiefly of salted egg and salted cabbage, and that it is much inferior to the diet given in the third-class wards at the Queen Mary Hospital.
I hope that my Honourable friend the D.M.S. will make a thorough investigation into the complaints which I have ventured to bring forward.
Coming now to the recent Cholera epidemic, I cannot but give utterance to the sense of disappointment on the part of the public in regard to the way in which it was dealt with by the Medical Department. The sense of dissatisfaction has been expressed publicly in the Press. I gladly and gratefully acknowledge the high sense of devotion to duty and to the public weal shown by my Honourable friend the D.M.S., and all the Medical Officers. The Colony is grateful to them. But somehow the organisation broke down. Take the case of the supply of serum.
On the 16th August the South China Morning Post published an account of the interview with the Honourable D.M.S., at which the D.M.S. pointed out that there was sufficient anti-cholera serum for a 5 or 6 day campaign at full speed. The paper also stated that it had been decided to appeal to Manila, Bangkok and Saigon for further urgent supplies. The very next day the paper announced that "ample supplies" were still available, "Government having a good supply remaining of the consignment received from Shanghai, and having secured some locally from the Bacteriological Department." These conflicting reports would appear to lend support to the rumour that the statement of shortage was made in ignorance, or forgetfulness, of the fact that a large supply had actually been lying in the godown at Kowloon all the time, and that the "s.o.s." messages sent to various places to send further supplies to Hong Kong had to be cancelled soon after they were despatched.
To one, like myself, who has always appreciated the value of educating the general masses in regard to the efficacy of preventive Western Medicine in general, and of inoculation in particular, it is a
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