278
DONALD C. BOWIE
Saito. He acted without giving reasonable consideration to the cases of sick people put to him as needing hospital treatment, so that many for whom hospital treatment could have been life-saving were not sent in.
When the hospital moved nearer to the camps in Kowloon in 1945 we began to see signs that it might be going to be used properly to receive the more serious cases in the camps as they occurred and so fulfil its proper function. If we had been moved near to our sources of patients at the beginning of our imprisonment we might have served our sick more extensively and would have been of greater value to the camp doctors. A move then, when we had a hospital full of seriously wounded, would have been dangerous for these men. By the time the move occurred the need was much less pressing though our availability did, I believe, do much to improve our service.
I do not know what relations existed between Saito and his commander Colonel Tokunaga, but while I must, in justice, be careful in reaching judgments, I consider that as a medical man Saito failed to do much that lay within his power for our sick, particularly those in camps. In saying this I do not claim for our prisoners more than the standards of care allowed by international agreements. A coordinated plan to apply such resources as we commanded in camps and in hospital would have made a vast difference to the medical story of prisoners in Hong Kong.
While therefore I can agree that we in the hospital fared better than many in Japanese hands I must also record my conviction that the possession and careful husbanding in the hospital of our own resources played a very large part in such successes as we achieved. Any success that attended the efforts of any of us would have been immensely diminished without the aid of Mr. Zindel and the Red Cross Society and our generous friends in Hong Kong.
Without the life-saving measures provided by the medical services in the P.O.W. camps, using makeshift resources, many patients would never have reached the hospital at all.
THE STAFF
My main purpose in writing this account is to record the history of the British Military Hospital, Hong Kong, from 1942 to 1945 and those who served on the staff or were patients there. The account fails to record some of the colourful personalities we had
278
DONALD C. BOWIE
Saito. He acted without giving reasonable consideration to the cases of sick people put to him as needing hospital treatment, so that many for whom hospital treatment could have been life saving were not sent in.
When the hospital moved nearer to the camps in Kowloon in 1945 we began to see signs that it might be going to be used properly to receive the more serious cases in the camps as they occurred and so fulfil its proper function. If we had been moved near to our sources of patients at the beginning of our imprisonment we might have served our sick more extensively and would have been of greater value to the camp doctors. A move then, when we had a hospital full of seriously wounded would have been dangerous for these men. By the time the move occurred the need was much less pressing though our availability did, I believe, do much to improve our service.
I do not know what relations existed between Saito and his commander Colonel Tokunaga, but while I must, in justice be care- ful in reaching judgments, I consider that as a medical man Saito failed to do much that lay within his power for our sick, particularly those in camps. In saying this I do not claim for our prisoners more than the standards of care allowed by international agree- ments. A coordinated plan to apply such resources as we com- manded in camps and in hospital would have made a vast difference to the medical story of prisoners in Hong Kong.
While therefore I can agree that we in the hospital fared better than many in Japanese hands I must also record my conviction that the possession and careful husbanding in the hospital of our own resources played a very large part in such successes as we achieved. Any success that attended the efforts of any of us would have been immensely diminished without the aid of Mr. Zindel and the Red Cross Society and our generous friends in Hong Kong.
Without the life saving measures provided by the medical services in the P.O.W. camps, using makeshift resources, many patients would never have reached the hospital at all.
THE STAFF
My main purpose in writing this account is to record the history of the British Military Hospital, Hong Kong, from 1942 to 1945 and those who served on the staff or were patients there. The account fails to record some of the colourful personalities we had
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