Triennial report on the hospitals and dispensaries in Burma.

  • Burma.
Date:
[1919]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Triennial report on the hospitals and dispensaries in Burma. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    21/62 (page 15)
    These women are trained at the exp* nse of the Local Government but the latter has apparently no hold on them, and they are at liberty to resign at any time. Before training, 1 think, the candidates should be compelled to sign a bond to continue in the employment of the local body to which they are posted on com¬ pletion of their training for three years. The reason for leaving is simply that the midwife can make more money by private practice. This may right itself in time, as the supply overtakes the demand, but at present the temptation to better themselves proves too strong for many of them. But while the arrangements of the torvns are being gradually met, nothing has been done for the rural population, nor do I think anything can be done on the present lines. The women who qualify as Results System Midwives or Dufferin Nurses will not live in rural tracts, the life does not appeal to them and they can earn higher wages in the towns. An experimental scheme has been submitted to the Local Government for the training of “ Village Midwives. 29. Lady Minto Nursing Association.—The total number of cases attended during the triennium was 241 as compared with 200 in 1914—16. During the last three years 103 cases were refused, no nurse being available. About one-third of the total number attended were maternity cases. The Secretary states “since 1916 the number of subscribers has consider¬ ably decreased and as a business concern, the Association is not self-supporting in Burma. It will be a pity if this very useful Association has to suspend work, through lack of public support. 30. Pasteur Institute.— The number of patients attending shows a steady increase year by year, 313 in 1917, 379 in 1918 and 462 in 1919. The patients came from 90 different stations and during the whole period only 4, or *35 per cent, of treated cases died. Information with regard to the Institute and the Railway and Steamer concessions to those attended it, have been circulated throughout the Post Offices of the Province. Rangoon furnished 279 patients out of a total of 462, but the remaining cases have been fairly evenly distributed over the whole Province, except the Arakan Division, from which no cases came, possibly they find it more convenient to go to India. Associated with the Pasteur Institute in the same building is the Bacteri¬ ological Laboratory, the Director being also Bacteriologist to Government. I do not think the public generally realise what a large amount of unobstrusive hard work is done here, with a staff very weak numerically as compared with similar institutions in India. One thousand two hundred and ninety-seven cases were examined during the last year, many of them involving long complicated processes of investigation. The staff has been strengthened since the close of the year by the appbintment of an Assistant Director, but this is only a fraction of what is required. Medical Research, one of the most important functions of the Institution, has perforce been in abe}ance ever since its foundation. Future developments should find their base of operations here, and, rightly directed, the institution has a magnificent future, when the many medical puzzles of this Province, presenting problems second to none in interest and value, can be attacked with adequate resources. But I sometimes think the present Director must feel rather like Moses,, who looked on the Promised Land from afar, but was never allowed to enter it. 31. Burma Medical Council.—Colonel Strickland vacated the office of President on leaving the Province and was succeeded by Lieutenant-Colonel J. Entrican. Six meetings of the Council and 16 of the Executive Committee were held during the triennium. One hundred and thirty-nine names were added to the Register making a total of 645 Registered Medical Practitioners. 32. Hospital Abuse. — There is a great deal of this throughout the Province. People wrho scorn the idea that they are objects of charity, have yet no qualms about demanding free medical attendance at institutions intended only tor the poor and needy, and by so doing place the unfortunate Medical Officer in a very invidious position. Except the patient is personally known to him, it is often impossible to tell whether he or she is in a position to pay, and advantage is taken of this by many who should be above such petty meanness. A donation box in the