Sessional_Paper_1896 — Page 724

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boundary line of open space except on the western side where there is a breadth of a street between the Hospital buildings and the outside buildings, but the Hospital buildings are very much higher up. It is a different question if you have a hospital like the Tung Wa in a crowded locality where there is not plenty of light and air and ventilation, considering it is situated at the base of an almost perpendicular hill.

Have you any idea what your proposed scheme would cost ?-No; I have not got even a rough estimate. I was almost going into it at the time, but did not care to.

Have you any idea as to what it costs annually to maintain the Tung Wa Hospital in its present state ?-No; because I do not know in how many directions the money goes. You can form some idea by asking what it costs to keep up the Government Civil Hospital?---The Civil Hospital would be tremendously more expensive annually than the Tung Wa. You would not require to keep up a staff of European sisters and European wardmasters at high salaries in the Tung Wa Hospital, and you could manage it much cheaper in other ways. You might get a very much larger number of patients, I admit, but I doubt it.

Mr. WHITEHEAD-What would your scheme be ?-My present idea would be to take the cattle depôt-you might want another cattle depôt, a smaller one---but the one at the time I mentioned it was an ideal building for a Chinese hospital. I would have a European to go there and have it cleaned up daily, the latrines and annexes carefully looked after. There is no necessity for making the patients swallow European medicines, but certainly all the dangers caused by septicemia, blood-poisoning, gun-shot wounds, and other cases which might and very often go wrong in Chinese hands, should be solely in European hands whether the Chinese wanted it or not. When the Chinese do get under European supervision they stay under it, and one of the greatest difficulties at the Tung Wa Hospital now is outside interference with the European people who go there to advise. Many days I have gone in there and persuaded men to come into the Civil Hospital, and I make a deliberate statement that a great deal of trouble is due to outside Chinese, to the men on the Tung Wa Committee, and the Chinese doctors who go round and pollute the minds of the Chinese patients after they have expressed a desire to leave the Tung Wa Hospital and go to the Government Civil Hospital.

THE PRESIDENT-Ilave you any proof of that ?--There is proof in that report.

You state you have persuaded many patients to go to the Civil Hospital, and that they have been deterred by outside influences-by the Chinese doctors and the Tung Wa Committee. What proof have you of that statement ?--I have proof that the Chinese did it before at the time of the plague in 1894, and also that the men, when I went back to them, have sometimes told me that they did not want to go, and I have known that the Chinese doctors have gone there and talked to the patients when they had promised to go to the Civil Hospital. I do not talk Chinese, but that is the only conclusion any reasonable man could come to. I have not seen with my own eyes men going there and persuading them not to leave the Tung Wa Hospital for the Government Civil Hospital.

There is the case of a man who had his leg amputated. Since then he has been coming to me and stating that he is deprived of his means of livelihood, and that if he had been consulted he would not have had his legamputated.—That man was got at in some way. The Chinese reporter you sent up went and told a lot of lies.

That is all I can say.

Mr. Tuomson—I do not suppose you would have cut off his leg unless it was necessary ?--It was absolutely necessary. He was in a semi-comatose state and was likely to die, and when a man is in that condition you must give him a chance to live. A Chinaman very often forgets to remember that he gave permission to have an amputation especially if he thinks he can make money by doing so.

You say that the Chinese after coming under European treatment prefer to remain under it ?-Yes.