Sessional_Paper_1907 — Page 296

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public, who are so greatly affected by the Ordinances, is to have them recreated and the Department placed on a regular business basis, as would have to be the case in a Municipality.

325. The present Administrative Head of the Department has very many important duties to perform.

He is a Member of the Executive Council, and as Medical Adviser to the Government and Head of the Medical Department, has the supervision of a large medical staff, the Government Civil Hospital, with branches of maternity hospital and infectious hospitals, the asylum, gaol, bacteriological Departments, and Victoria Mortuary, and is, as is well known, not only liable, but is actually called in to act as. Consulting Surgeon to the above Establishments. He is further permitted to engage in a private consulting practice.

326. The work of the Medical Department has greatly increased of late years and will undoubtedly continue to increase in the immediate future, with the steadily growing necessities of the Colony, the present annual expenditure being nearly a quarter of a million dollars.

327. In addition to the above, the Principal Civil Medical Officer is resident Surgeon of the Chief Hospital in the Colony for women and children, containing 40 beds, and where simultaneously several confinement cases tnay, and indeed at times do, claim his attention. This Hospital is in itself sufficient occupation for one surgeon.

328. The Principal Civil Medical Officer should under ordinary occasions have a certain amount of leisure time so that in the event of an epidemic breaking out, or some other sudden demand being made upon him, he shall have sufficient time to spare for this work, without having to neglect or pass over to others a portion of his regular duties.

Moreover, the Principal Civil Medical Officer has now by the passing of Ordinance 23 of 1903 been placed as Administrative Head of one of the largest and most important Departments in the Government of the Colony, with an annual expenditure of close upon $500,000 and a staff of upwards of 60 members, exclusive of a large number of clerks, and of coolies and day to day employees..

329. The Public Health and Buildings Ordinance is one of the most important enactments ever introduced into our Legislature, in the satisfactory carrying out of which depends the comfort and even the prosperity of every individual member of the community.

330. Humanly speaking, it is demanding more than the powers of any one man to carry out these multitudinous duties satisfactorily, and at the same time, as Administrative Head, give that constant and close supervision to the Sanitary Department, which its proper working demands.

331. We have been told in evidence in justification of the system we condemn that this obtains in Singapore and other Crown Colonies.

We may therefore be excused from referring to the state of affairs as existing at the present in our sister colony.

332. The whole of the Sanitary work of Singapore is in the hands of a Municipality with a self contained and competent staff. With this, the Principal Civil Medical Officer has nothing whatever to do. That official does not hold a seat on either of the Councils, but he is head of the whole Government Medical Department, and as in Hongkong, controls the Hospitals, Asylum, Gaol, and Quarantine Stations.

333. Before proceeding to detail our proposal with regard to the working of the Sanitary and Building Department, as above outlined, we will give a summary of the Staff as now divided between the Sanitary Department and the Building Authority.

In this summary, we have included all the European employees, interpreters; market and building overseers, and the like.