Health > Collaboration with the Ministry of Health of the National Government of the Republic of China

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V. PROPOSALS FOR A REORGANISED SERVICE.
A. Central Administration, Powers and Finance.
The report of the Medical Director indicates the policy of the Ministry of Health
as follows:
(1) To transfer the quarantine service from the Ministry of Finance to the
Ministry of Health, where it will be under central technical control.
(2) As a first step, to take over in the summer of 193® work in Shanghai,
in order to bring about improvements in the system and to provide a training ground
for the personnel to be assigned to other ports.
(3) To take over and provide efficient quaratine services in all ports within two
years.
In pursuance of this policy, a temporary department has been created with head¬
quarters at Shanghai, under the direction of Dr. Wu Lien Teh, who has been appointed
as Chief Technical Adviser to the Ministry of Health. This department is charged with the
duty of reorganising the quarantine services in the various ports of China, and its Director
is responsible to the Minister of Health. This temporary department came into being
on July 1st, 1930, when the Ministry of Health took over from the Minister of Finance the
control of the quarantine service of the port of Shanghai.
It is proposed to reorganisee the service in this port and at the same time to train
personnel to take over the quarantine service in other ports at convenient times within the
next two years. . . ,
It will be seen, therefore, that the Central Administration has been already set up m
the form of a new but temporary department located at Shanghai.
This central department will ultimately control the administration of quarantine lor
all the ports of China, and will provide a uniformity of practice and co-ordination of effort
for the country as a whole. It is needless to discuss, therefore, the respective merits of a
separate quarantine service and of a quarantine service as one of the activities of a centra
health service, as the former is the Ministry s policy. . . , ,
Under conditions as they exist to-day in China in the domain of public health, there
was no other way of providing a national quarantine service. The hope may be expressed,
however, that, concurrent with the development of a modern public health service or
China, centrally administered, the possibility may be kept in mind of co-ordinating the
activities of the quarantine service in the ports with the established shore public health
service.
A quarantine service, the authority of which stops at the water s edge, works under a
serious handicap as compared with a quarantine service which is administered centrally
and locally as a part of a well-organised, efficient shore health service. The latter can
supplement the work of the quarantine service by the help of its personnel, the use of its
hospitals and laboratories to an extent that makes the application of quarantine measures
less stringent and more effective.
It may happen that, in China, the quarantine service, when completely reorganised,
will form the nucleus of the shore health service in the ports.
This aspect of the matter might be made more likely of accomplishment if the services
of the quarantine staff are available to the shore administrations at least m an advisory
capacity in each of the ports as they are taken over.