HONG KONG
UNFIDENTIAL
-3-
358
CHINESE POSITION (continued).
yet at 24 hours' notice Friday night to Saturday audience of over 450 Chinese attended.
BD
We tried to obtain permission to use the Press when Chinese opinion had been favourably expressed, but the Governor still hesitated, though as he realised that the subject would be discussed in any case, he gave us per- mission on the Saturday before we left to write letters to the papere ourselves.
The maintenance of the atmosphere of taboo round the subject wae, we consider, very injurious to the work of the Commission and prevented the establishment of the clean public health attitude towards the problem.
PUBLIC HEALTH.
Although Hong Kong has been under British rule for 80 years public health work is in its infancy.
No serious attempt seems to be made by the Government medical service to improve the standard of health of the native population. In spite of the high infant death- rate no attempt has yet been made to enlighten the Chinese women on the most elementary points in personal and infant hygiene. The effort to deal with the midwifery problem only resulted in the training and appointment of five or six midwives but no steps have been taken to educate the people as to the advantages of Western over Chinese customs in this direction. In 1918 the registered deaths of infants under one year of age exceeded the registered infant births by 824. Out of a total death- rate of 13,714 the deaths of infante under one year amount- ed to 4,259. The outstanding feature in the public health problems is the competition between Eastern and Western medicine. At the Tung Wah and the Kwong Wah Hospitals patiente choose which form of treatment they will take. The Government subsidise both Hospitals, and pay the salary of Dr. Thomas, the resident surgeon at the Kffung Tah. For inspection purposes it comes under the Vivil Medical Officer.
The floors
The Hospital was dirty and badly equipped.
We were told that were unclean; the bedding was unclean. there was no nursing. staff and apparently no hospital atores. The suggestion that charwomen might be employed to maintain some sort of cleanliness was accepted by the
The contrast be- P.0.M.O. as a practicable suggestion.
tween this Hospital and the one run on the same lines in Singapore is extreme. The Chinese opinion of Western medicine is also far higher in Singapore than in Hong Kong.
The Chinese Dispensaries are managed by a Chinege Advisory Committee of which the Secretary for Chinese affairs is Chairmanı. These Dispensaries are supposed to give the native population the advantage of Western medicine. The men in charge take an abbreviated medical course at Hong Kong University (such courses now abolish- ed) and carry on their work in small shop-like premises. There is a very low standard of cleanliness and the Medical Commissioner considered that the ignorance of technique and lack of elementary training of the majority of the men in charge, together with the
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