Sessional_Paper_1896 — Page 671

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"keep the place clean. No Doctor seems to be regularly on duty. "When I go there I cannot find who has authority and who is on “duty.

I complain of the general mismanagement, and say that "patients run risks in going there from maltreatment...

I cannot understand who has the deciding of the refusal to admit "any destitute applicant. There does not seem to be any system in "the place whatever. That is my experience after repeated calls at the "Tung Wa. ............The whole question was referred to at the monthly "meetings with the staff............Practically no improvement has been apparent.... ..From a medical point of view, I think the Tung "Wa should be abolished.

They have failed to carry out the "object and purposes of the Ordinance, viz., the proper treatment of the "indigent sick amongst the Chinese population. I do not think patients "there are properly treated if they are allowed to die without receiving "adequate medical attendance.

The arrangement at present is "that I visit the Hospital every morning with Mr. U I-KAI, who has been trained at the Chinese College of Medicine and at the Government "Civil Hospital, and see all cases which have come in during the previous twenty-four hours. I ask him to explain to the patients when I think "it advisable that they should be transferred to the Government Civil

Hospital, and ask whether they will consent to come in or not.

If they "consent, they come; but since the present Committec was appointed I

· cannot help thinking that the patients are influenced by some of the people in authority, because nearly every one of these surgical cases "that I have recommended transfer to the Government Civil Hospital "since the present Committee was appointed has refused to come into "the Civil Hospital. The cases that have come in since the present "Committee was appointed are almost all medical cases. "thought patients were being discharged from the Tung Wa suffering " from infectious diseases and other complaints and that they were not in a

fit state to leave the Hospital. "typhoid fever especially.

C

..I

...I referred to some cases of I know of two cases of typhoid

"which have come under my own experience since April, 1895, and there "have also been cases of puerperal fever.

..I received an order

"from the previous Committee that all patients should be seen by me "before they were discharged. I saw them up to a certain date in “November or December, 1895, but since then they have been allowed to "leave without my having seen them. The new Committee did not "observe this regulation and patients are now discharged without my knowing whether they are in a fit state to be discharged or not. ....Ifa Chinaman trained in European medicine were appointed "in charge of the Tung Wa Hospital, he would not be in a sufficiently

strong position to materially improve matters."

..

22. Dr. Lowson, Medical Officer in Charge of the Epidemic Hospital and Acting Superintendent of Government Civil Hospital, in a Report on the Epidemic of Bubonic Plague, dated 1st March, 1895, writes :-

140-15.

The question of dealing with the Tung Wa Hospital must now be seriously Evidence considered. I cannot denounce this hot-bed of medical and sanitary

*

"vice in sufficiently strong terms. I venture to say that if the question

of allowing this to remain was to be submitted to the Public Health. "Authorities at home they would order its immediate abolition. Here I "know that a political element enters into the question, but I doubt if "those who have supported it most would do so now if they knew what "a disgrace and danger to the public health of Hongkong it is.