HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
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takes have been asked for and indeed in most cases demanded by the public and have in all cases been approved by this Council. Such services could of course be curtailed but the Honourable Member has wisely refrained from specifying the services he wishes curtailed, except for a hint that the Government is giving greater medical facilities than the Colony can afford.
My Honourable friend the Director of Medical and Sanitary Services has replied in detail to most of the points raised by the seconder of the motion in connection with the Medical Establishment of the Colony. On this subject I shall confine myself to more general remarks on the points raised by the mover.
The Medical and Sanitary Departments have during the last few years been reorganised with what was thought to be the support, if not the encouragement, of the unofficial members of this Council, a reform which culminated in the recent legislation covering all matters of public health.
It must be remembered that in 1924 the estimated population of Hong Kong was 695,500 as against 966,341 in 1935. In 1924 the public health organisation of the Colony was considerably below that deemed normal for a first class Colony such as Hong Kong then was and still is. In 1924 there was no Government Hospital in Kowloon, which had then a population of 140,000. The only medical assistance offered by Government on the peninsula was at a small outpatients' dispensary in Nathan Road. The present Government Civil Hospital, soon to be replaced by the Queen Mary Hospital, contained two wards less than to-day. The Maternity block at the Victoria Hospital had not been erected. There was no Central Medical Store, no special Radiological Branch or Malaria Bureau, no Venereal Diseases Clinic, no New Territories dispensaries, no Infant Welfare Centres and no school welfare service, and the Tsan Yuk Hospital was not a Government institution.
The amount of work performed by the Medical Department, that is the amount of service to the community of Hong Kong, may be gauged by the following figures showing the increase in the number of patients treated in Government Hospitals, clinics and dispensaries.
Inpatients
Outpatients
Vaccination
Operations
1924
1935
6,899
12,510
66,578
277,188
11,438
864
2,691
It is somewhat inopportune now to query the cost, unless the Colony is prepared to forego the services which it has till recently been demanding. In providing these services Government in no way wishes to enter into competition with private practitioners, or to provide free what can and should be paid for. A recent investigation
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