5.
CONFIDENTIAL,
health and tuberculosis work in particular during the
1950's and 60's has resulted in Hong Kong today being
free from any of the quarantinable diseases. This
must be considered as a major achievement in the light
of Hong Kong's immigrant population which had
quadrupled to 2 million in the ten years to 1955 and
has since risen to 4.4 million.
6.
In the immediate post-war
years the people had no proper housing, crowded
and insanitary living conditions and an inadequate
water supply and inevitably there were epidemics
of smallpox and cholera and diseases such as enteric
fever, dysenteries, tuberculosis and malaria were
prevalent.
But today the average life expectancy
in Hong Kong is 71.7 years, the second highest in Asia
and comparable with the developed countries of the
West (virtually the same as the U.S.). Over the
last fifteen years, infant mortality per 1,000 live
births has dropped from 41.5 to 15; maternal mortality
from 0.49 to 0.03; and TB deaths per 100,000 from
67.8 to 14.8.
7.
Nevertheless there is still
overcrowding in some hospitals in the old urban areas,
there are insufficient beds for psychiatric and
geriatric patients and progressively provision must be
made for the New Towns. Only nominal fees for
consultation plus prescriptions of $1 and $3 per day