Annual report of the Medical Department / Colony of Singapore.

  • Singapore. Medical Department.
Date:
[1946]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Medical Department / Colony of Singapore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    10/148 (page 6)
    Civilian sick and wounded were left at the Mental Hospital, called Miyako Hospital by the Japanese, and one medical officer, one surgeon and one eye specialist, all European, were permitted to remain at Miyako Hospital to look after them until the middle of 1943. Changi Gaol—a large modern prison—was divided into four blocks—A, B, C and D Blocks. All the women and children occupied A Block, while the men occupied the other blocks and there was no free communication between the men’s blocks and the women’s block. There was an ample water supply and the sanitation was water carried, there being one “squat” latrine in each cell. The big modern kitchens were able to cope with the cooking for all internees but wood had be to burned to heat the boilers instead of oil, as was the usual practice in peace time. There were 106 doctors interned in Changi Prison. The prison hospital was a small, two-storied building of 40 beds, on the men’s side, with a small operating theatre adjacent. Medical officers and surgeons were appointed to > look after this hospital, while each block opened a dispensary with two medical officers in attendance. A Camp Health Officer was appointed for the prison as a whole, and each block had one health officer under him. They dealt with ordinary health measures. The women’s block had a similar arrangement, though they had no proper hospital but improvised one in a small block for European prisoners. For some time all the more serious cases were sent by ambulance daily to Miyako Hospital, and only the milder cases of illness were treated in the prison hospitals. It soon became apparent that the quality and the amount of food provided for the internees were to take paramount place in the concern of the European Camp Administration and were to be the deciding factors in survival. A Medical Advisory Committee was formed to regulate the amount and variety of meals provided and to advise on the composition of meals according to the foodstuffs available. The prison had gathered a large stock of tinned foods of all kinds and an invaluable stock of marmite and, at the beginning, the Japanese supplied ample stocks of polished rice. For a few months internees were treated to a very adequate amount of food daily but no fresh food or fresh fruit was available. After about three months, during which period a mild epidemic of dysentery occurred in the prison, many internees developed oedema, which was regarded as a manifestation of beri-beri, and some neuritic cases occurred. This responded to marmite and injections of Vitamin Bi. After this outbreak the Japanese authorities were persuaded to do some¬ thing to improve the standard of food; and for some months rice polishings, fresh meat, vegetables and fruit were provided, and other fresh food, such as eggs and coconuts, made available for purchase. For a time, the general health of internees improved considerably but the supplies of fresh food were gradually reduced and stopped at the beginning of 1943. It was then that the health of internees deteriorated further, and early in 1943 amblyopia made its appearance, affecting about 120 internees. The amblyopia, in many cases, was complicated by neuritic symptoms. As time went on the health of the internees generally deteriorated and the hospitals and block dispensaries had to deal with all kinds of troubles due to food deficiency, in addition to ordinary illness. A prison garden worked by internees outside the camp provided some fresh vegetables daily. Acutely ill patients continued to be sent to Miyako Hospital until 10th October, 1943, after which date all cases, medical and surgical, had to be dealt with in the Changi Prison Hospital. On 1st May, 1944, internees were moved from Changi to Sime Road Camp. This camp was situated beside Bukit Timah Golf Course and had been an R.A.F. camp before the war but most of the huts had been burned down or