M 51
Table XXIX.
Total prisoners
Daily average number of
inmates.
admitted.
Total admissions to hospitals.
Daily average No. of prisoners to hospital.
Total
out-patients.
Daily average number of
out-patients.
Deaths.
Death-rate, i.e. No. of deaths to total
admissions to prison.
There are in Hong Kong, in addition to the prisons, two remand homes, one for boys and one for girls. The home for boys admitted 1,109 during the year, and 85 remained in at the end of 1938. The home is visited by a medical officer once weekly and the general standard of health was good throughout the year. 420 of the boys were inoculated against cholera and 720 vaccinated against smallpox. The commonest complaint treated in the remand home was scabies. The home for girls accommodated 311 inmates during the year. The home was visited whenever necessary by a Government lady medical officer.
2. Mental Hospital.
283. The Mental Hospital became an independent unit after the former Government Civil Hospital was closed in 1937.
284. The building was originally intended to give temporary accommodation to patients awaiting transfer to Canton, if Chinese, or to Europe or other countries if of other nationalities. Unfortunately, the Sino-Japanese conflict has greatly increased the number of admissions into the Mental Hospital, and as it has been impossible to transfer patients to Canton since its capture by the Japanese in October, 1938, the hospital has been seriously overcrowded.
285. Designed in the first place to accommodate thirty-two patients the building has on several occasions during 1938 had to house over 100 patients. The figures which are given here in tabular form illustrate the position more clearly than any words can do.
Table XXX.
Scheduled to accommodate Maximum number accommodated Male European Ward 7 19 Female European Ward 7 18 Male Chinese Ward 9 61 Female Chinese Ward 9 27