M 32
185. This table gives details of Hong Kong's air-traffic:--
Table XV.
ARRIVALS DEPARTURES Nationality of aircraft Aircraft Passengers Crew Aircraft Passengers Crew British 116 150 252 115 200 230 Chinese 458 5,330 1,802 475 3,261 1,850 American 35 325 274 35 316 273 French 24 201 94 24 186 94 Total 633 6,006 2,402 649 3,963 2,447V.-MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE.
186. Accommodation for maternity cases in the Colony amounts to 378 beds. Private maternity homes also house a large number of cases, and eighty-eight of them were inspected during the year.
187. At the end of the year there were 712 names on the Midwives Register. Fifty-four candidates satisfied the examiners at the examinations carried out under the auspices of the Midwives Board.
188. The Medical Department employs sixteen midwives who are stationed in Chinese Public Dispensaries at Aberdeen, Kowloon City, Shamshuipo, Shaukiwan, Stanley and Yaumati, and at Government Dispensaries at Fanling (Ho Tung), Sham Tseng, Sai Kung, Tai O, Tai Po and Un Long. Free service is given to the poor by these midwives who also visit the mothers before delivery and the mothers and their babies during the week after delivery.
189. Visits to expectant mothers numbered 2,775 and to puerperal mothers 10,635. During the year under review 11,119 mothers were taught how to wash their babies.
190. 2,862 mothers were visited during the year, an increase of 209 on the figure for 1937. The majority of the mothers visited had enjoyed normal labours, but this number comprised twenty abortions, nineteen miscarriages, twenty-eight premature births and fifty-one still births. In sixty instances the mothers were taken by ambulance to hospital, usually on account of delayed labour and usually after the medical officer from the nearest dispensary had been called in. Apart from deaths amongst those complicated cases, only two mothers attended by Government midwives died.
191. The midwives when not practising their art help in first aid work at the various dispensaries. The supervisor of midwives (a qualified woman medical practitioner) functions as a general inspector of these women and their work, and investigates cases of complicated puerperium, causes of death in infants and complaints lodged against the midwives.
192. Ante-natal and infant welfare work is carried on at a large number of centres including the Violet Peel Health Centre, the Government Welfare Centre in Kowloon and numerous hospitals and dispensaries. The six Government dispensaries in the New Territories and nine centres maintained by the St. John Ambulance Association also help in this work.