X1000307-1949-50_Part03 — Page 17

1. Staff.

156

ANNEXURE M.

Report of work in the Almoners' Department of the Medical Department from

April 1949 to March, 1950.

During this last year 1949-50, the Almoners' Department has suffered many changes, and the period has been rather a turbulent one, resulting in a great deal of hard routine work for the members of the staff. The Principal Almoner, Miss Margaret Watson, 0.8.2. left the Colony in March 1949 and the new Principal Almoner did not arrive until September. Another member of the staff went to England during this period for a course of training and the Acting Principal Almover was forced to carry on with more responsibility than before and with a reduced staff. Nevertheless by April 1950, the Medico-Social Department was able to look back upon a year of hard work and of some achievement.

Almanera are now in attendance at the following hospitals and clinics:

Queen Mary Hospital

Kowloon Hospital

Harcourt Tuberculosis Clinic

4 almonere.

$

3

Sai Ying Pun Centre O.P.D.

1

Taan Yuk and the Mental Hospital.

Violet Peel Polyclinic

1

St. John Hospital, Cheung Chau,

visiting almoners.

Medical Headquarters.

Ruttonjee Sanatorium,

and Lai Chi Kok Hospital

Principal Almoner

2. Training.

Three new student almoners were appointed to the Depart- ment in December 1949 with pay. Seven additional students volunteered to take a year's course of training under the auspices of the Almoners' Department. These trainees have attended courses of lectures given by the Supervisor and Training Officer of Health Nurses, the Sister Tutor, Queen Mary Hospital by various doctors, and by the Principal Almoner. They have also been on many visits of observation to local factories, welfare centres, orphanages and other institutions. Further experience in home visiting and interviewing has been gained with the Family Welfare Society, with the Society for the Protection of Children and in the offices of the various Hospitals.

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157

All these students are graduates of Chinese universities and have taken sociology or economics as their major subject.

The Almoners' Department, with the help of the Supervisor and Training Officer for Health Nurses, has also dealt with the appointment and training of six new Tuberculosis Workers who are attached to the Harcourt Tuberculosis clinic. There are now twelve such workers under the direction of the almoners at the Harcourt Clinic,

S. General Work.

Although medico-social work has, in itself, not developed greatly within the hospitals this year owing to the need for retrenchment, nevertheless assistance has been given to patients in need in the following ways:

(a) Repatriation,

In many cases patients come from Chiu into Hong Kong for a few years, are ill, have treatment, and then desire to return to their home village. They are, as a rule, destitute, and the almoner sees that they are either taken by police or relations to the border, and that they have enough money and clothes to travel back to China.

(b) Artificial limbs and other surgical appliances. These are supplied to those patients who need them, funds being provided, where necessary, either by Government or from the Almoser's Samaritan Fund.

Some of the artificial limbs have been obtained from New Zealand, America and England; bat orders are as a rule placed with local men, one of whom has himself lost a limb and makes surgical appliances as his only means of livelihood.

(c) Hawkers' Licences.

Recommendations for hawkers' licences are made by the almoners, and in suitable cases these licences are granted to patients. This enables many an injured or incapacitated patient to obtain a living where otherwise he would and employ- ment impossible.

(d) Maintenance of Children.

The Medico-Social Department has made arrangements during the year for the maintenance of children of patients, or of children who have been patients, in Homes and Crèches In the neighbourhood. In most cases Homes agree to have these children free of cost, but for a few the parents, if known, will

pay.