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Dr. ATKINSON.-He would be under the Colonial Surgeon not the Board. The Colonial Surgeon would be the medical adviser to the Government and would have charge of the Medical Department.
Mr. THURBURN.If the Government wish this Tung Wah work to be done, it would take up a man?
Dr. ATKINSON.-The new hospital I propose is a matter that could not be done for some time.
Mr. THURBURN.--I do not think we would go the length of recommending that. We must take the Tung Wah as it is, and if the work there is to take two or three hours a day it would be too much for the Health Officer of the port and the Gaol.
Dr. ATKINSON.-It could be arranged by the Colonial Surgeon. He might depute the Assistant Surgeon at the Civil Hospital. The Colonial Surgeon goes there at pre- sent, and it takes him about an hour, so far as I can make out. I do not think there is any reason why the Colonial Surgeon should not be able to arrange that. If the Assist- ant Surgeon at the hospital could not do it, probably the Medical Officer of Health might do it if he was not busy. Although they are all under the Colonial Surgeon and we would call them Medical Officer for the town and so on, it would be simpler to call them medical officers in the Medical Department so that they would be available to be called upon to do any duty belonging to the Department. Their work need not be absolutely confined to what they are chiefly engaged for.
Mr. THURBURN.-In large towns at home the duties of the medical officer are entirely with the sanitary authorities ?
Dr. ATKINSON.-Yes; but the sanitary authorities at home are very different from the Sanitary Board in Hongkong.
THE PRESIDENT.-Do you think the Colonial Surgeon should be called the Medical Officer of Health for the Colony?
Dr. ATKINSON.-He is at present. He is really, I take it, the medical adviser of the Government in all matters appertaining to the health of the Colony. He is the superior medical officer of the Colony if you put it that way. Of course, he is an official member of the Sanitary Board appointed by the Government, and it is his duty, as medical adviser of the Government, to report to the Government when he thinks the Sanitary Board or its officers are not doing their duty. He is really the medical officer of health for the Colony. I think the Colonial Surgeon does a great deal of work which should not appertain to his office at all. He should not have to go and see policemen's wives and children. That should be the work of a subordinate officer, and he would have more time to ascertain matters really appertaining to the health of the Colony. He should go and inspect all parts of the Colony, and see that things were done properly and call the attention of the Government to certain localities if their condition appeared to him to be insanitary.
THE PRESIDENT.-He has very little time to do that now, and has no time for the sanitary supervision of the Colony ?
Dr. ATKINSON.--That is so.
Mr. THURBURN.-If you got a medical officer of health for the town, that would be his special duty?
Dr. ATKINSON. That would not prevent the Colonial Surgeon from keeping general supervision over him.
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THE PRESIDENT.-If a medical officer of health were appointed for the Colony, could he do the port as well?
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