Sessional_Paper_1902 — Page 178

82

No. 2796.

SIR,

( 48 )

Appendix I.

COLONIAL SECRETARY'S OFFICE, HONGKONG, 31st October, 1901.

Committee of Inquiry into the Adequacy of the Staff of the Medical Department.

In reply to your letter of the 29th instant, I am directed to state that His Excel- lency wishes the Committee to enquire into :-

(1.) the numerical strength of the Staff of the Medical Department;

(2.) the position and duties of the Principal Civil Medical Officer;

but not into the question of salaries.

2. I am glad also to inform you that Colonel HUGHES, R.A.M.C., has consented to serve as a member of the Committee

Deputy Inspector General DREW, R.N.,

The Royal Naval Hospital.

I have the honour to be,

Sir,

Your obedient Servant,

J. H. STEWART LOCKHART, Colonial Secretary,

Appendix II.

No. 169.

SIR,

GOVERNMENT CIVIL HOSPITAL, HONGKONG, 6th June, 1901.

I have the honour to draw your attention to what I consider is a need, as far as the Medical Department of this Colony is concerned, in the hope that His Excellency will consider the demand legitimate and will give it his support.

I refer to the necessity of having another Assistant Surgeon attached to this Department permanently.

I need only mention the trouble we have just had in getting temporary assistance, and, in view of the fact that plague and small-pox are always likely to be with us, at any rate for many years to come, it will nearly always be one officer's work to attend to the Infectious Hospital for the greater part of the year, now that the nursing of and attendance on infectious cases has been placed on a proper footing by His Excellency.

Attendance on the wives and families of Government servants has also increased with the increase of the subordinate staff of the various departments.

Extra work in connection with malaria in the New Territory is constantly crop- ping up, and we will always be able in non-epidemic times to keep an additional officer usefully employed.

With the newer methods of observation, a knowledge of which we have acquired lately both in connection with malaria as well as other diseases, the Assistant Superin- tendent of the Hospital has his time much more fully occupied and is no longer so much available for outside work as formerly.