M 36
# VI.-HOSPITALS, DISPENSARIES AND VENEREAL DISEASES CLINICS.
200. The list of Naval, Military, Government Civil, Chinese and private hospitals is given in Return B. to this Report. Those who are interested in the details of these hospitals are referred to the Report for 1937.
201. Certain changes and additions in hospital accommodation are, however, worthy of note. These were necessitated by the very serious overcrowding following an increase in the normal, peace time population of nearly 50 per centum by refugees.
202. To give one or two examples of such overcrowding from the writer's actual experience in visits to Chinese hospitals during the year:-wards scheduled to accommodate thirty patients had twice this number, mostly on the floor between beds making approach to and nursing of such unfortunates very difficult; a small ward for sick women, mostly old, possessed seven beds grouped together on which nineteen had to find a resting place; two wards containing forty maternity beds with sixty-six women. Many other examples could be cited and the state of affairs was aggravated in the largest Chinese hospital (until strict measures were taken with the Chinese directorate) by the presence in the precincts of the dangerously overcrowded wards-containing cases of dysentery, typhoid, tuber-culosis, cerebro-spinal meningitis, etc.,-of nearly eight hundred refugees.
203. Appreciating the urgent need for increased hospital accommodation, Government sanctioned the conversion into a relief hospital of buildings erected originally to house emigrant Chinese labourers to South Africa and subsequently utilised as the main prison for men prior to the opening of the new Hong Kong Prison at Stanley.
204. These blocks were opened on 4th May, 1938. The lower portion provides space for 300 beds and the upper for 200. The furnishings of both portions are on a rather primitive scale-with wooden beds and few of the usual adjuncts of a hospital, but the accommodation has proved most valuable and has relieved the worst of the pressure on the bed-space in the Chinese hospitals. Efforts have been made to admit only those patients from the wards of the Chinese hospitals who were convalescent or were suffering from malaria, beriberi and the like and, with appropriate treatment, could be improved and returned to civil life in a comparatively short time. The only exception to this restriction of type of patient relates to one ward devoted to children suffering from bony tuberculosis sometimes complicated by pulmonary lesions who had hitherto been housed under quite intolerable conditions in the darkest and oldest portions of the largest Chinese hospital. The little patients have repaid this special concession by their improvement in health. The upper blocks of this auxiliary hospital were fly-proofed and proved an invaluable asset during the height of the cholera outbreak in 1938. They will be needed for the dangerous infectious diseases until a new infectious diseases hospital has been built on the Kowloon Medical Centre.
205. As a further means of meeting the demand for beds in the Kwong Wah Hospital (one of the three Chinese hospitals), marquees were obtained on loan through the kind offices of the Military Authorities; these provided shelter for between seventy-five and 100 patients. Atmospheric conditions in these marquees at the height of the summer and in the heavy rains are far from ideal and there is a constant danger of such structures succumbing to the force of typhoons; consequently, it is hoped to replace them by more permanent buildings in 1939.
206. The shortage of hospital facilities gave rise to deep anxiety and the Governor appointed a committee under the chairmanship of the writer of this Report to advise as to the actual needs and how best they might be filled. The committee met on eleven occasions during the year to receive evidence and to collect and collate data. It had not completed its deliberations by the end of the year, but its findings should be available during the summer of 1939.
M 36
VI.-HOSPITALS, DISPENSARIES AND VENEREAL DISEASES CLINICS.
200. The list of Naval, Military, Government Civil, Chinese and private hospitals is given in Return B. to this Report. Those who are interested in the details of these hospitals are referred to the Report for 1937.
201. Certain changes and additions in hospital accommodation are, however, worthy of note. These were necessitated by the very serious overcrowding following an increase in the normal, peace time population of nearly 50 per centum by refugees.
202. To give one or two examples of such overcrowding from the writer's actual experience in visits to Chinese hospitals during the year:-wards scheduled to accommodate thirty patients had twice this number, mostly on the floor between beds making approach to and nursing of such unfortunates very difficult; a small ward for sick women, mostly old, possessed seven beds grouped together on which nineteen had to find a resting place; two wards containing forty maternity beds with sixty-six women. Many other examples could be cited and the state of affairs was aggravated in the largest Chinese hospital (until strict measures were taken with the Chinese directorate) by the presence in the precincts of the dangerously overcrowded wards-containing cases of dysentery, typhoid, tuber- culosis, cerebro-spinal meningitis, etc.,-of nearly eight hundred refugees.
203. Appreciating the urgent need for increased hospital accommodation, Government sanctioned the conversion into a relief hospital of buildings erected originally to house emigrant Chinese labourers to South Africa and subsequently utilised as the main prison for men prior to the opening of the new Hong Kong Prison at Stanley.
204. These blocks were opened on 4th May, 1938. The lower portion provides space for 300 beds and the upper for 200. The furnishings of both portions are on a rather primitive scale-with wooden beds and few of the usual adjuncts of a hospital, but the accommodation has proved most valuable and has relieved the worst of the pressure on the bed-space in the Chinese hospitals. Efforts have been made to admit only those patients from the wards of the Chinese hospitals who were convalescent or were suffering from malaria, beriberi and the like and, with appropriate treatment, could be improved and returned to civil life in a comparatively short time. The only exception to this restriction. of type of patient relates to one ward devoted to children suffering from bony tuberculosis sometimes complicated by pulmonary lesions who had hitherto been housed under quite intolerable conditions in the darkest and oldest portions of the largest Chinese hospital. The little patients have repaid this special concession by their improvement in health. The upper blocks of this auxiliary hospital were fly-proofed and proved an invaluable asset during the height of the cholera outbreak in 1938. They will be needed for the dangerous infectious diseases until a new infectious diseases hospital has been built on the Kowloon Medical Centre.
205. As a further means of meeting the demand for beds in the Kwong Wah Hospital (one of the three Chinese hospitals), marquees were obtained on loan through the kind offices of the Military Authorities; these provided shelter for between seventy-five and 100 patients. Atmospheric conditions in these marquees at the height of the summer and in the heavy rains are far from ideal and there is a constant danger of such structures succumbing to the force of typhoons; consequently, it is hoped to replace them by more permanent buildings in 1939.
206. The shortage of hospital facilities gave rise to deep anxiety and the Governor appointed a committee under the chairmanship of the writer of this Report to advise as to the actual needs and how best they might be filled. The committee met on eleven occasions during the year to receive evidence and to collect and collate data. It had not completed its deliberations by the end of the year, but its findings should be available during the summer of 1939.
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