Annual departmental report by the Director of Medical and Health Services / Hong Kong.

  • Hong Kong. Medical Department.
Date:
[1962]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual departmental report by the Director of Medical and Health Services / Hong Kong. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    where 52 more beds were put into use for children. At the same time a redistribution of tuberculosis cases to the Grantham Hospital from the Queen Mary and Lai Chi Kok Hospitals has freed more acute and convalescent beds for paediatric cases. Meanwhile, work on the two major Hospital projects of the Queen Elizabeth and New Kwong Wah Hospitals is going ahead rapidly. It is expected that the Queen Elizabeth Hospital will be opened in the middle of 1963 and that the New Kwong Wah Hospital will also be completed before the end of that year. 8. Inevitably, there is an increasing number of physically handi¬ capped in the younger age groups as a result of severe trauma on the roads or at work. More and more emphasis is accordingly being placed on rehabilitation services which will fit the disabled to return to full employment either in the accustomed field or in a new one more suited to the altered potential. The development of a Government Surgical Appliance Centre where artificial limbs and other prostheses are made locally and fitted in conjunction with physiotherapy is now beginning to make a significant contribution in this field. Voluntary agencies are also active in rehabilitation and the Tuberculosis Rehabilitation Service of the Lutheran World Service has made a modest but very promising start. The Kwun Tong Rehabilitation Centre sponsored by the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation will be completed in 1962 where special emphasis will be laid on the recovery and return to work of the victims of severe industrial injuries. 9. Progress has also been made in the registration, assessment and training of the blind and the deaf, again by voluntary agencies. The prevention of blindness and the early detection of visual defects has made considerable progress, while the addition of an Audiology Tech¬ nician to the staff has marked a significant advance in the assessment of hearing defects. 10. The Centre for the Voluntary treatment of Drug Addicts at the Castle Peak Hospital is now well established. Designed as a pilot scheme to gain experience of the pattern of addiction in Hong Kong and the most fruitful regimen of rehabilitation, much useful information has been obtained during this first year of its work. In the meantime, the Hong Kong Society for the Aid and Rehabilitation of Drug Addicts is going ahead, in close co-operation with the Government, with its plans for a Centre at Shek Kwu Chau, an uninhabited island adjacent to Cheung Chau, where accommodation for 240 addicts requesting treatment on a voluntary basis will be ready during 1962. The intention is to send