CO129-567-6 Tung Wah Hospitals- supplementary expenditure 22-1-1938 - 13-1-1939 — Page 23

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meet outstanding liabilities.

It is probable that a sum

of $150,000 will be required to enable the Committee to

meet their liabilities to the end of 1938 including the

repayment of an overdraft of $60,000 at the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, and I shall be glad to receive your authority to invite the Legislative Council to vote

this sum in due course. The Finance Committee has been

consulted informally and has agreed that assistance is necessary and that the deficit should be met from the

revenue of the Colony. This payment is recommended in

the expectation that the proposed terms of re-organization

will be agreed to and if that scheme is accepted it is

inevitable that a large increase in the regular annual

grant will be needed for an indefinite time to come, both

in order to meet the deficit on the present basis and to

pay for the improvements in the quality of the service of

these Hospitals which is expected to follow. Considerable

additional expenditure, as you are aware from my despatch 540053533/38 No.460 of 3rd June, 1938, has already had to be met by this

Government in rendering portions of the old Lai Chi Kok

prison fit to accommodate cholers patients and to relieve

the serious overcrowding of the Chinese hospitals.

12. In this connection I may mention that not long

after my arrival I appointed a committee to report upon

the whole question of the existing hospitalization of this

Colony and to recommend measures for its re-organization

and improvement. The Tung Wah hospitals, of course, come

within the scope of the committee's investigations.

13.

The matter is urgent, and I shall be glad to