Sessional_Paper_1896 — Page 679

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39. If these recommendations are carried out and an effective and continuous control is exercised over the place by the Government through the competent officers of the Medical and Sanitary Departments, the Tung Wa Hospital will continue to be most useful as a Poor House and Refuge for the Destitute, and as a place to which the Chinese may, in accordance with their peculiar ideas, convey their relations, friends, or countrymen in articulo mortis. It will also, as regards the sick, give them more comfortable accommod- ation than their houses can afford them, and a better chance of recovery in the order of nature. The Hospital will also aid largely in the segregation of dangerous cases and so benefit the Colony, but it should do far more than this. In my opinion it is nothing short of a disgrace to the Government of the Colony that during the twenty-four years the Tung Wa has been opened, no attempt, however slight, has been made to improve the treatment of the destitute sick Chinese. There is an absolute ignorance of anatomy and of the simplest operations of surgery among the practitioners in the Tung Wa Hospital. There is positively nothing in the Hospital that can be recognised as medical treatment. There are a few simple old women's remedies in use for the commoner ailments, but the most atrocious ignorance of anything deserving the name of medical science prevails. Persons are allowed to die there, one might say, daily, through the ignorance of the so-called "doctors" and through prejudices which are brought to bear to prevent the poor and destitute patients from having recourse to European aid.

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40. I feel sure that the Chinese would resent any direct attempt to interfere with their treatment of the patients according to Chinese ideas, and I do not recommend any interference of that kind; the adoption of European methods should be perfectly voluntary; but I strongly recommend that the Directors of the Tung Wa should be required, as the condition sine qua non, of their being permitted to continue in the management of the Hospital, to gradually substitute for the present Chinese doctors, others, also Chinese, who, as well as being trained in Chinese medicine should have gone through a course of study in Western medical science, so that every patient in the Hospital who desired to have the benefit of the newest lights should have on the spot a man capable of affording it to him. It should not be made compulsory to adopt Western methods of treatment. Every patient, who desired to be cured by Chinese medicines and in Chinese ways, should be at perfect liberty to make his selection, but the power of choice would then be real, and not illusory.

41. The appointment of Doctors should still be in the hands of the Chinese Directors entirely. No sudden change in the qualifications should be insisted on, but vacancies should be filled by Chinese who had gone through a regular course of European medicine so far as such persons are available. It should be laid down that within seven years from date all the Chinese Doctors in the Hospital should have had such a training and that no further unqualified men should be employed.

P. 65.

p. 42.

42. As to its finances, the Tung Wa Hospital' having been endowed with public funds to the extent of $115,000, it appears the Government, when incorporating the Appendix Institution, had fully decided that the Hospital's accounts should be audited, as is usual in all such cases. Sir RICHARD MACDONNELL in a despatch dated 19th February, 1872, advised Lord KIMBERLY, then Secretary of State, that a vigilant supervision was Appendix intended to be maintained over the accounts and expenditure by auditors appointed by Government, and Government Notification No. 23 of 10th February, 1872, appointed the Registrar General and the Head Master of the Central School auditors ex officio. On enquiring for the auditors' reports, I was informed by the President of the Com- mission, in a letter dated 17th August, 1896, that "so far as he was aware no audi- tors have ever been appointed by the Government to audit the Tung Wa Hospital accounts." The abstract of the annual receipts and payments, and statement of the Appendix assets and liabilities of the Hospital at Singapore are audited by the Government, and I am of opinion that the accounts of the Tung Wa Hospital should have been audited

P. 71.