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Dr. Lowson. If you say there is no necessity for the Tung Wah Hospital being visited you knock off half a man's work, and if you say there is no necessity for keeping the Hygeia for small-pox cases you knock off half another man's work. But there is one thing to be remembered about the Tung Wah Hospital, it is going to become a big business. At the present time Dr. AYRES goes round, but he has not got time to do it justice. If I were to get it into proper condition it would take me five or six hours a day to do the work properly. The Government want reliable statistics from the Tung Wah Hospital and the present Chinese staff there do not know how to do it. This is a matter that wants a lot of care. It simply comes to this-if the Government want certain work done in the most careful manner more men are wanted-coolies can do work the quality is another consideration. Time is wanted to do it properly.
Mr. MCCONACHIE.-For all practical purposes, you consider that six medical men are required for this Colony?
Dr. Lowson.-Yes; that is admitting the necessity for a Medical Officer of Health to go round the town.
Mr. MCCONACHIE.-Can you suggest any re-arrangement of the different duties of each medical man so as to economise?
Dr. Lowson. You have to remember that there are at present three men doing the Government work outside Port work-the Colonial Surgeon, Dr. ATKINSON, and myself. Dr. ATKINSON goes away and the work of three men is thrown upon two, whereas if you had six men and one went away the work would be divided amongst five men and there would not be the same necessity for having relief at hand as is the case with only two men doing the work.
Dr. CANTLIE.-Do you think if a man were got in place of Dr. MARQUES to do the Gaol and the Tung Wah Hospital that he could attend to the wives and families of the Police? There is not much time spent at the Gaol.
Dr. Lowson.If I were a Policeman's wife I would certainly object, because the Tung Wah work is amongst dirt and dirty cases. Most of the single Policemen come in to the Civil Hospital and it is mostly parturient women and children who have to be attended in Police work-not the class to whom one wishes to introduce septicemia and other similar troubles.
Dr. CANTLIE. Do not you think it would be better to assign the Tung Wah work to the second man at the Civil Hospital?
Dr. Lowson.-I would keep all the dirty work together. It would never do for me to attend to a woman coming in in labour just as I had finished a post mortem.
Dr. CANTLIE.-Which of the three would be best for post mortems?
Dr. Lowson. The man who does the Gaol and the Tung Wah Hospital. I mean the post mortems at the public mortuary. In interesting cases at the Civil Hospital we have sometimes to do the post mortems ourselves, but we have U I KAI to do the operative work if we do not wish to touch the bodies.
Mr. THURBURN.-Would it not be a satisfactory arrangement if all the officers, including the Health Officer of the Port and the officer of the Gaol, were under the orders of the Colonial Surgeon, and that he should arrange their different duties?
Dr. Lowson. Well, it would be a very difficult thing to do. My actual appoint- ment just now is Assistant Superintendent of the Civil Hospital and I have to take charge of the epidemic hospitals. My ordinary duties take up the whole of my time, and if the Colonial Surgeon were to tell me to undertake the extra duty of attending the Tung Wah Hospital I could not be expected to do so without being paid for it.
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