Annual report of the Medical Department / Colony of Singapore.

  • Singapore. Medical Department.
Date:
[1953]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

    19/298 (page 7)
    Hospital in 1953. Both these are finding it increasingly difficult to deal with the popular demand. Of course the latter was designed with the intention of having a ‘filter’ in a new hospital centre at Thomson Road and with the present General Hospital on half the scale of the institution now being built up: the former on the basis of a second sanatorium elsewhere. So the result is not surprising. What is remarkable is the rapid and enormous increase in the popularity of this service. It was never thought for a moment even three years ago that the demand in this direction would have reached its present proportions for some years to come. So the Medical Plan has had to be modified in this respect to provide for a dispensary out-patient division at the General and a few cottage hospitals: these may well assume a priority position. The original idea was to provide two or three district hospitals and clinics to cope with this problem. Now and particularly as an economy mea¬ sure the new out-patient divisions will be combined with beds and a small resident staff. So this proposal will relieve the growing pressure on the expand¬ ing central in-patient institutions as well as covering out-patients. 25. Both the in-patient and the out-patient problem is particularly con¬ cerned today with the difficult question of orthopaedic work, and cripples and the handicapped—especially in the young. Not only has this question become one of major importance from the point of view of long term bed occupation, but equally so from that of preventing the growth of a large reservoir of useless citizens who will become a burden and a serious charge on the State. While the Orthopaedic Division under Professor Cameron has developed to significant proportions already, future development in this field will have to be undertaken only with discretion and a proper sense of proportion main¬ tained, if the money available is to be distributed properly over all the in¬ creasing demands which must be met for the advancing medical scheme. The Almoner and the Physiotherapist must play a vital part in the Service in this connection, and these sections are being steadily developed year by year to meet the need. The steady flow of cases from endemic infantile paralysis apart from the recurring epidemics of this disastrous and crippling condition stress these facts sufficiently. When the very little attention which was paid to this form of medical practice until very recent times is kept in mind, it will be realized what an important and significant advance has been made by the Government even with our present resources in this important division of modern medical work. This form of work also has a very signi¬ ficant relation to the problem of the care of the hospital patient from the point of view of the best use of the hospital beds available, and it is interest¬ ing to note the numbers in the latest England and Wales annual review in this connection. There the fact is stressed that in Manchester 20,000 more in-patients were treated in 1952 than in 1950 without any increase in actual beds. In Singapore the turnover in our acute institutions per bed has been almost doubled over the post-war period. The Professor of Surgery, Professor Mekie, noted in the 1951 Report that ‘it is readily seen from the figures published in successive annual reports that there has been a terrifying in¬ crease in the actual amount of work carried out in the hospitals of Singapore. The ever increasing numbers have been achieved without corresponding in¬ crease in staff as compared with the pre-war establishment.’ 26. Two other conditions require special consideration in view of the newspaper and other comment which has occurred over past months. These are tuberculosis and thoracic surgery, and malignant disease. These are very important factors indeed, and this fact is kept constantly in mind in our future medical planning. It must be remembered, however, that the Government has to cover the whole medical and health field, and that the backlog due