7.7 Social hygiene service: there has been a 23% decrease in the incidence of venereal disease since 1974 and the 5% of the cases which came from the teenage group have shown no increase. Gonorrhea accounted for 4,572 out of 7,361 cases in 1975.
7.8 Ophthalmology: the number of registered blind persons has increased from 1,237 to 1,451.
7.9 Radiology and Oncology: twenty three static X-ray centres and 3 mobile radiography units produced a total output of 784,339 examinations in 1975, a 1.1% increase on the preceding year.
7.10 Anaesthetics: this service manned 292 operating sessions per week and 6 theatres on a 24-hour emergency basis, covering 47,893 cases in all.
7.11 Dental service: thirty three clinics including a mobile unit dealt with 279,943 attendances: 106,537 teeth were restored and 68,776 extracted. In all, 57,968 people were made dentally fit.
7.12 Physiotherapy: there is an increasing demand for physiotherapy for the severely handicapped and for those in need of intensive care. There was a 12% increase noted in 1975, when 79,355 patients were given 761, 189 treatments.
7.13 Occupational therapy: there are 12 Government units covering both in- and out-patients, and the demand for occupational therapy has increased. The number of patients treated was 11,933.
7.14 Prosthetics/Orthotics: research and development is being done on functional hand prostheses and ankle/foot orthoses. There has been a noticeable increase in both industrial and traffic accidents recently, some 54,506 occupational injuries and 5, 179 traffic accidents requiring hospital treatment, being reported from Government and Government-assisted hospitals only.
7.15 Casualty services: there were 127,509 casualty admissions in the three major Government casualty reception hospitals ie Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary and Tang Shiu Kia, of which 31,339 were traumatic. Together with the Government-assisted hospitals, there were 170,631 casualty admissions in all.
7.16 Tuberculosis: a fall in the death rate from 22.9 per 100,000 population in 1974 to 14.8 in 1975 has been noted, and the disease is now rare in children under the age of 15. Some 98% of newborn are given BCG. Attendance at Government chest clinics was 1,301,297 with the number of new patients resulting from initial attendance, being 47,744.
8.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This report would not be complete without due acknowledgement of the very considerable assistance afforded by the staff of the British Trade Commission in Hong Kong. The medical trade mission was one of the largest missions with which the Post has had to cope and its success and the equally successful visit of the group of doctors from Hong Kong to Tokyo for the British Medical Seminar were in no small way due to the energy and interest of the Trade Commission.
-
W G ASQUITH
March 1977
6