ABSTRACT
By 1901 there were about a thousand patients in the general hospitals, about 400 in a Lunatic Asylum and 50 in a Leper Asylum. The general hospital beds were concentrated at the Civil Hospital in Port Louis and the Barkly Hospital in Plaines Wilhems. The other five Poor Law Hospitals had only 362 patients between them. t The hospitals beds were distributed in this way although as early as 1859 a committee of enquiry had recommended that there should be large district hospitals for serious cases, paid for by an additional tax.:j:
According to evidence by the Acting Head of the Medical and Health Department to the 1909 Royal Commission, none of the hospital buildings in Mauritius had been originally constructed for the purpose.§ Some of them were considerably overcrowded. The Civil Hospital had 220 beds but an average of 240-250 patients. II • Census of Mauritius and its Dependencies, 1871, Part I, p. 23. t Census of Mauritius and its Dependencies. 1901, p. 165. t Report of the Royal Commission on the Treatment of Immigrants in Mauritius,
At Pamplemousses the hospital had 30 beds with usually 35-40 patients.* It was difficult to get suitable nurses. By 1909, the Government had been induced to grant a number of special scholarships for girls to take up nursing. t Only about 4 % or 5 % of the hospital patients paid for their maintenance.::: The charges levied were Rs. 2 a day for first-class patients, Rs. 1 for second-class patients and 50c. for labourers and servants under contract and engagement. §
When the hospitals were inspected in 1921 by Dr. Balfour, the Director-in-Chief of the Wellcome Bureau of Scientific Research, he had much to say about their deficiencies. He complained of the absence of ambulances, laundries, incinerators, disinfecting apparatus, poison cupboards, lavatories, and temperature charts. He found that the facilities for isolation were inadequate and that the medical staff was insufficient and that some of them did not conduct their treatment on scientific lines. He summarised the position as follows: "In a new country one expects to find rough and ready conditions and many deficiencies but, in an old colony like Mauritius, it is distressing to find so much that is faulty and out-of-date" .11
