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We also recommend that the Trustees of the War Memorial Hospital be consulted as to the practicability of extending that hospital by at least another eighteen beds. At the same time we recommend that consideration be given to the re-opening of the former Victoria Hospital (Maternity Block) which would provide accommodation for about forty children's cots and beds. If the other portion of the hospital now used as flats could also be utilized for a similar purpose the premises as a whole could house between sixty and eighty children.
We are, however, principally concerned with the serious deficiency in general hospital beds for the Chinese population and we recommend the early construction of a 500-600 bed hospital on the Kowloon Medical Centre and a further 600 beds to be divided amongst the Tung Wah group of hospitals.
(b) Infectious fevers.
We endorse the recommendation which the Director of Medical Services has already made to Government for the erection of a 300-bed infectious diseases hospital (capable of expansion to 500 beds) on the Kowloon Medical Centre.
(c) Tuberculosis.
We do not consider that we are in a position to recommend any considerable provision in the nature of sanatoria at the moment, since it is necessary for a much larger body of data on the subject to be obtained.
In the meantime, however, we feel justified in recommending that a ward unit of thirty to fifty beds divided between the two sexes be constructed for tubercular patients on the roof of the Queen Mary Hospital.
This will enable full use to be made of heliotherapy and, incidentally, will release beds in the main wards of the hospital for the treatment of cases of venereal disease which are needed at present.
We also recommend that special pavilions be constructed at each of the three Tung Wah hospitals with about 100 beds in each for tubercular cases.
At the same time, we consider that it would be an advantage if a start could be made in the training of Tuberculosis Officers for work at the Health Centres which it is hoped to establish throughout the urban and rural areas.
Before leaving the subject, we recommend that all hospitals treating infective cases of tuberculosis be advised to do so in wards specially set aside for the purpose into which no healthy person should be allowed to go unless effectively protected by a mask.
(d) Sick children.
We recommend the re-opening of the Victoria Hospital which will furnish accommodation for forty children's beds or cots (sixty to eighty if the flats are reabsorbed too) pending funds being available for a children's hospital in pleasant, open surroundings.
(e) Lying-in cases.
We recommend that consideration be given to the utilization of the existing Kowloon Hospital as a maternity hospital when the new general hospital has been erected on the Kowloon Medical Centre. Since this will take some years and will not meet the demand on the Island, we also recommend that a seventy-six bed hospital be erected on land near to the Tung Wah Eastern Hospital. Thirdly, we recommend the erection of an isolation block at the Tsan Yuk Hospital where the existing beds for infectious cases are inadequate.
(f) Aged and infirm.
We recommend that as many as possible of this class of destitute be assisted to return to their ancestral homes.