HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.
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HON. DR. LI SHU FAN.—Your Excellency. The Budget for 1938 has been so fully dealt with by my Honourable colleagues that there is little left for me to add. However, there are certain aspects on which I would like to make a few remarks.
If it were not for the uncertainty ahead and other reasons So lucidly set out by the Honourable The Colonial Secretary, I would like to see the inclusion in this Budget of provision for certain amenities, particularly medical; namely, a hospital for infectious diseases and also the long awaited Sanatorium.
My Honourable colleague, the Senior Unofficial Member, has expressed the urgent need of a hospital for infectious diseases. Perhaps
as the only unofficial member of this Council with medical knowledge, I may be permitted to pursue this aspect of the question further in conjunction with the recent outbreak of cholera.
For too long in the past we have looked upon the health services from a parochial standpoint, instead of an international undertaking closely bound with the welfare or the affliction of China and other neighbouring countries.
The cholera epidemic of this year found us practically unprepared. despite the fact that Siam (with which we have close and frequent shipping connections) has for years recorded annual spring outbreaks, and this year one in a most virulent form. From Siam the epidemic had spread to Hoihow, thence here and Canton and later, Shanghai and other coastal ports of China.
We were unprepared in the sense that: Firstly, we did not possess an adequate supply of anti-cholera vaccine at the outset, consequently our health authorities were obliged to wire for vaccine from Java, Singapore and Europe. I believe this epidemic should bring home to us the advisability of keeping in future an adequate stock of vaccine on hand in cold storage for emergency purposes.
Secondly, we have no proper hospital for the accommodation of infectious disease cases, where they can be admitted without loss of time and treated by a skilled staff, with proper equipments.
The obsolete Kennedy Town Infectious Diseases Hospital proved too inadequate, and resort was made to improvise the old Government Civil Hospital to meet the emergency, with what result can be imagined.
From the first appearance of cholera on the 22nd July, 1937, until the 2nd October, 1937, according to the figures kindly supplied me by the Honourable The Director of Medical Services, 1,635 cases were reported with 1,035 deaths. 1,342 cases were treated in Government Hospitals.
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