55
HONGKONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
closet latrine: And whereas such ap- plication having been duly approved by the Governor and a notification of the intention to erect an underground trough closet latrine on such site having been duly published in three successive num- bers of the Gazette a certain owner in the vicinity has objected to such erection: And whereas such objection has been duly considered: It is hereby resolved by this Council that the above mentioned site and the erection thereat of an under- ground trough closet latrine be and the same are hereby approved.
water, being re-corked in some instances with corks identical with those used in the dispensary. In reporting the in- cident of the spirits of wine Dr. Johnson said :--I consider that the manner in which the medical stores is administered is not a desirable one and present occurrence"; and Mr. Thomson, that it is largely responsible for the then acting as Colonial Secretary, com- mented: The store
system 10 the
Medical Department is evidently in a rotten condition. No one knows what the waste has been in the past, if this The
HON. MR. WEI YUK seconded, and report is taken as an example.' this was agreed to.
a
The Government Civil Hospital
HIS EXCELLENCY-I promised at the last meeting of the Council to give more detailed reply to the third of the questions which
were put at that meeting by the hon. member nominated by the Justices of the Peace. That question was worded as follows
Was not the stock of drugs and dis- infectants kept in store at the Govern
40
ment
Civil Hospital considerably re- duced by the present Principal Civil Medical Officer before the war?"
Inatter was fully investigated, two Chinese officers were dismissed from the service, and steps were taken to put the store administration upon footing. Prior Medical
a proper
to 1913 the Principal Civil Officer, although he signed orders for stores, was not consulted as to their issue, which was under the general supervision of the Superintend ent of the Civil Hospital. It was, and it still is, the rule, that Government servants drawig less than £300 a year can obtain medicines free at the hospital, while those drawing £300 or upwards were allowed to purchase medicines at approximately cost price. The term It is necessary, as a preliminary step,
"medicine" to examine the conditions pertaining at
for the purposes of the rule was supposed to denote a prepa- the Civil Hospital, prior to Dr. Johnson's ration for the treatment of disease pre- appointment in the matter of the con-
scribed by a Government or a private trol and issue of drugs and disinfectants.
medical practitioner. The rule was not The keys of the store, nominally in
observed. Senior officers were not as a charge of the Apothecary, were kept rule called upon to pay for articles openly on a hook in the dispensary. supplied to them, and the term medi- From 1 pm daily, until the following cine was extended to cover almost any morning, the dispensary was left in the articles in store for which a Government sole charge of three Chinese dispensers.
servant might think fit to ask. Two of these slept in the hospital prescriptions were not required, a written mises, and all three had free access to
request, which was the drug and disinfectant store.
some cases in- itialled by medical officer at the hospital, being regarded as sufficient at the dispensary. In most cases the re- quests were not eyen seen by a medical officer. The Apothecary states: With regard to prescriptions, once anything had been prescribed the patients could, as far as I could see, repeat it ad libitum, and frequent cases occurred of the same mixture having been supplied for six to twelve months or even longer. patient no doubt thought it was require] and also took it, but it allowed of no medical supervision." The Apothecary quotes the case of a member of the
Dr. Johnson arrived in the Colony on the 15th January, 1913, and on the 28th January he brought it to the notice of the Government that 40 gallons of spirits of wine, ordered by Dr. Bell, the Acting Principal Civil Medical Officer, on the 13th December, and duly entered by the Apothecary in the stock-book as taken into store, had never in fact been re- ceived at all. Not long afterwards he reported that an examination of certain cases of brandy in the store showed that various bottles had been emptied of their contents and had been filled with
E
in
Pre-
The
HONGKONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
Police Force who was supplied regularly with malt and cod liver oil from October, 1911, to June, 1914.
He con- sumed altogether 39 bottles of this mix- ture, the retail price of which is $1.50 a bottle.
I am informed that this par- ticular article, and various similar articles stocked at the Civil Hospital, which I may describe as medical com- forts, are not stocked at all at one at least of the leading hospitals in London.
up
56
pensive they are without any compensat-
ng merits."
Dr. Johnson paid particular attention to the 'ssue of brandy in the Civil Hos- pital, the number of bottles supplied being in 1910, 408, and in 1912, 1913, 1914, 1915, 312, 204, 192, and 127 respectively. Dr. Johnson reports that he is quite satis- fied that no patient has been one particle the worse for this diminished issue. Dr. Johnson also terminated a practice under which hypodermie solutions were pre- pared in bottles containing a large num- the bottle. The practice was wasteful be- ber of doses, the syringe being filled from
cause solutions became stale and were to supply tabloids and ampoules contain- thrown away.
The present practice is
He similarly ig fresh single doses. prevented waste in the matter of chloro- form by supplying, as far as possible, 4 oz, bottles to the Operating Theatre in place of 1 lb. bottles; surplus chloroform been discarded on the plea that it had in the latter bottles having frequently
deteriorated.
new-comer
to
The sudden upsetting of old custom, the drastic changes insisted upon by the who had unwittingly excited rancorous jealousy among certain persons then in the Colony because he had accepted an appointment, offered him by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, which
many had hoped would go to Dr. Bell, raised a storm of disapproval and of indignation at the Civil Hospital, and among the various charges published on the house- tops against Dr. Johnson was the one now again brought forward, that he was improperly cutting down the hospital supplies. I may say here that in my re- ference to the jealousy of certain persons I do not allude to Dr. Bell, who bore his disappointment most philosophically.
Immediately after his arrival in the Colony, Dr. Johnson began personally to investigate the administration of the stores at the Civil Hospital. On the 7th February, 1913, he wrote to the Super- Intendent: I notice that over 200 dozen bottles of various kinds have been issued during January. This is quite sufficient for the entire needs of the Army, Navy, and Civil hospitals of the Colony, and would even then be exces sive. Dr. Johnson set his face against the then prevailing practice of ordering stocks of patent medicines, popular for a time and then discarded.
With regard to this he reports: Heaping purchases, which are often not well-con- sidered ones, is not a sound policy. I have been asked for various proprietary medicines like A and B (it is unneces- sary to give the names.) Neither of these is necessary. They are both capable at the most of relieving symptoms, and B, besides being expensive, is as nice as a sweetmeat to the taste. But they are of no particular import, except to the pro- prietors, and it is a reasonable thing to avoid the purchase of patent and pro- prietary articles which are, for the most part, of no special value." I may men tion in this connection that about July, 1915, the Apothecary, unknown to Dr. Johnson, compiled a list chiefly of patent drugs which had been in stock unused It was alleged in the first place that in for some time, and he asked the doctors ordering from the Crown Agents the connected with the hospital whether they drugs and disinfectants required for could prescribe the articles in question, 1914 Dr. Johnson sent in an indent in order to prevent waste. As far as the sinaller than the customary one. Apothecary remembers, none were used.
was the case. It had been the custom to I may also quote an extract from "Rules order for some eighteen months in ad- for Economy in Prescribing," which ap- vance, and Dr. Johnson very properly peared last year in an article in the decided to indent for shorter periods, British Medical Journal: Avoid the and to send forward supplementary re- ase of all patent and proprietary medi-quisitions as the requirements became cines. The secret remedies and more known. With regard to this indent the secret remedies, published by the British | following minute by Dr. Bell is on Medical Association, has shown how ex- record:
This
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