The most outstanding examples of neglect are of those who were assumed by other Chinese to be suffering from leprosy. In these cases it is apparent that the Chinese were afraid to approach the ill person, believing the disease to be contagious. In every case, the post mortem revealed that the dead person had not in fact been suffering from leprosy, but from other diseases. When Ah Fee became sick, Ah Quoy, a storekeeper at Ironbark village, collected a subscription among the Chinese and had Ah Fee's tent placed outside the village, because the Chinese believed he had leprosy and feared contamination.⁴⁹ Ah Fee refused to go to hospital, and his only visitor was his countryman Hock Pen who placed wood and water outside his tent weekly. He died from pulmonary consumption in October 1864, but it was four days before Hock Pen found his body.⁵⁰ The concerns of the Chinese mirrored fear in the European community that leprosy existed in the Chinese villages.⁵¹

Among the most poignant cases of death on the Bendigo goldfields are the suicides, which reveal a little of the mental health of the deceased. Seven per cent of deaths investigated by inquest were believed to be suicide. In most cases the death had been carefully planned. In two cases the Chinese man had placed a stick or a piece of bamboo across a mining hole and hanged himself by the neck. Other miners were alerted when they saw a straw hat, a jacket or a pair of shoes lying neatly beside the hole. In only one case was a possible motivation provided. At the inquest of Un Fun Chaw, aged thirty, in June 1855, his brother, Un A'Cheug, said that Un Fun Chaw had been only three months in Victoria and one week residing with him in Peg Leg Gully. According to Un A'Cheug his brother 'fretted very much at not being able to get any gold'.⁵² Of all the inquests these suicides raise most vividly the realisation of the loneliness and despair of some Chinese on the Bendigo goldfields.

Networks: Relatives, Mates and Countrymen
Yet most of the Chinese were not alone. Though they lacked female companionship the inquest records suggest that they did have strong kinship and clan networks. Forty-three witnesses described themselves, through the interpreter, as 'mates' of the deceased. As with European miners, the terminology denoted a working partnership. Sometimes these had been recently dissolved, suggesting that Chinese were free to make their own working arrangements. Of the forty-three mates, twelve also had relatives who worked with them. Forty witnesses at inquests were relatives of the deceased.⁵³ Some of the deceased had wives and children in China. For example, Yau Lit, who died of old age in July 1862 aged seventy-one, was married with a wife, five sons and two daughters in China. The inquest record gives no indication why a man so elderly should have migrated to Australia, although in 1860, his year of migration, Qing attitudes opposing emigration were relaxed in China.⁵⁴ We do know he did not come alone but accompanied by his son and nephew. ⁵⁵ Only seven of the ninety-seven men were clearly alone in the world, while all others had acquaintances who had known them in China or had met them on the goldfields and who knew them well enough to be checking up on them if they were ill.

Figures 6 and 7 - Chinese Networks in Deceased Chinese Examined by Coroner's Inquest in Bendigo 1854-65.
Graphs by Valerie Lovejoy based on information from PROV, VPRS 24/P0, Inquest Deposition Files

    

The records reveal that a Chinese person who had relatives, mates or countrymen to care for him in his illness, received greater attention than someone who was alone. Relatives usually lived together in the same tent or next door to each other. Even those who did not live in the same area would turn to relatives in time of sickness. A'Liem, a miner in Bendigo, had relatives in Castlemaine, so when he became sick, they sent a cart for him, took him to live with them, and looked after him until he died.⁵⁶

People from the same district or village also assumed a duty of care, consisting of kindnesses such as supplying the sick person with food, or money to buy food, or taking them into their tent. For example, Sing Oy had come to Bendigo four years prior to his death at Ironstone Hill from tuberculosis in October 1865.⁵⁷ He had worked as a miner for three years but, for twelve months prior to his death, had been unable to work. Witness Ah Ching told the jury, 'we used to send him provisions when he didn't come in to us for mealtimes. He had plenty of clothes and bedding - we saw to that as he was a Canton man like ourselves and we always help each other.'⁵⁸ Storekeepers often took the lead in collecting subscriptions from the sick person's countrymen. A'Chong, who kept a store at the Chinese village at Ironbark, collected subscriptions from Chinese to support Sing Oy in the last days of his illness.⁵⁹

Occasionally Chinese were neglected on the goldfields because no one felt responsible for their welfare. When Tuk Sing died on 9 August 1864 in his tent at the Ironbark Chinese Village, he had been ill from consumption for three or four months without any medical attendance and unable to work.⁶⁰ According to his only friend, witness Ah Foung, Tuk Sing used to walk about and ask any Chinese he met for money to buy food. Despite Ah Foung's statement that he had brought rice and other Chinese had sometimes sent assistance, the coroner considered Tuk Sing had been neglected as he found him greatly emaciated with no food at all in his stomach or intestines.⁶¹

Examples of neglected Chinese are relatively rare. Indeed, when the jury on the Tuk Sing inquest suggested that someone authorised by the government should officially inspect the villages to see that similar cases did not occur, Superintendent Chomley of the Bendigo Police replied that this was a 'very exceptional case. It is unnecessary for police to hunt up Chinese villages to find sick people. The Chinese can get admitted into hospital when they wish, the same as Europeans.' Quoting the example of an Englishman found dying of disease in an unroofed hut, Superintendent Chomley stated that the Chinese were looked after much better by their countrymen than the English. He observed that 'the jury may as well recommend that the tents of all Englishmen should be inspected'.⁶² Victoria's Chief Commissioner of Police, Frederick Standish, a former protector on the Bendigo goldfield, to whom the case was referred, concurred with Superintendent Chomley's judgement in a brief note attached to the inquest record.⁶³ While the remarks about the lack of impediment to hospital admission were true in theory, they obscure the difficulties the Chinese experienced in dealing with European institutions.⁶⁴

Relationships with Europeans
Some of the frustrations the Chinese experienced in their dealings with police, doctors and the coroner can be explained as misunderstandings engendered by communication difficulties. In matters of health particularly, the coroner frequently commented that death need not have occurred had medical intervention been sought at an earlier stage or indeed at all. There is no doubt that Chinese were reluctant to call on European doctors, though the rules of societies such as the See Yap Society encouraged them to do so.⁶⁵  Used to Chinese medicine which used food, herbs, moxibustion or acupuncture to restore balance and harmony to the body, many sick Chinese probably did not trust the allopathic approach of European doctors.⁶⁶ However, the reason most often given at the inquest was being too poor to afford medical help. A'Theam had been sick for the seven months following his arrival in Victoria, but had never been attended by a doctor. He died of pneumonia and pleurisy and the coroner judged that if A'Theam had received proper medical attention he would have had every chance of recovery. His cousin A'Cee explained that a doctor hadn't been called because they had no money.⁶⁷

Chinese doctors were present in the villages, and were often the first port of call,⁶⁸ but they also were expensive, and appeared to defer to European doctors in cases of serious illness, perhaps because European doctors had easier access to the hospitals. When his brother A'Gee suddenly took ill soon after his arrival in Bendigo in 1857, A'Nye called Chinese doctor Lun Fat who found the patient very hot and thirsty. Lun Fat advised A'Nye to call a European doctor.⁶⁹ A'Nye had no money and had first to look for his countrymen to collect a subscription. Lun Fat administered traditional medicine to relieve A'Gee's thirst, but A'Gee died a few hours later of acute peritonitis. Lun Fat recognised that this was a serious case requiring immediate hospital treatment, but was powerless to facilitate admission.⁷⁰ Self-medication was common among the Chinese, who regarded food as medicine, in preference to dealing with any doctors.⁷¹ Opium was freely used as a pain-killer, while Chinese tea, congee (rice porridge) and soups were fed to the ill for nourishment. In Tuk Sing's case, the coroner found small puncture marks on his chest which he concluded had been made to relieve pain.

Although in theory no discrimination was practised by hospital authorities, in practice the Chinese experienced difficulty gaining admission to hospital. In earlier years, some inquest witnesses claimed that they did not know there was a hospital let alone how they could access the system. The jury, alarmed by the ignorance of A'Theam's mate in 1855, urged authorities to inform Chinese 'as to how they are to act in all cases where means do not allow them to procure proper medical attendance'.⁷² In October 1857, in response to unease about the access of Chinese residents to health care, the Chief Secretary suggested that a voluntary contribution should be remitted monthly to a doctor who would contract to provide medical attendance to the Chinese.⁷³ The idea was opposed by both the Chief Medical Officer, William McCrea, who asserted that the Chinese 'are as intelligent and capable of taking care of themselves as other people',⁷⁴ and Chinese Protector Frederick Standish who replied that Chinese residents would be unwilling to contribute, as they had subscribed £100 to the Bendigo Hospital in 1856 but still experienced difficulty in gaining admission.⁷⁵ Hospital records show that there were few Chinese admissions before 1860.⁷⁶

The case of Ah Choy reveals the shortcomings of an admissions system that was difficult to manage.⁷⁷ When Ah Choy became ill in March 1863, A'Chong, a storekeeper at the Ironbark village, called Dr Atkinson who gave him a certificate of admission to the hospital, but when A'Chong got to the hospital he was told it was full. He was supplied with a certificate of admission to the Benevolent Asylum, but the superintendent there told him he needed a doctor's certificate. A'Chong went back to Dr Atkinson who supplied one. The Asylum superintendent then agreed to admit Ah Choy. When Ah Chong returned to fetch Ah Choy, he found someone had taken him in a cart to see Dr Boyd. On his way to Dr Boyd's, A'Chong met the cart on its way back to the Asylum. When Ah Choy was lifted out of the cart he was dead. A'Chong had done everything he could, but the time taken to negotiate the system may have resulted in Ah Choy's death. Of course difficulty with gaining admission was not the only reason for the low number of hospital and asylum admissions. Lack of faith in hospitals is exemplified in records by the Chinese patients who absconded and in the inquests by those who refused to go to hospital in the first place.⁷⁸