PUBLIC HEALTH
159
Department, which is fully staffed night and day, is seldom working at less than full pressure. There is no out-patient department as such, the hospital being fed from the various clinics and dispensaries on the Island, but a large number of specialized out-patient clinics are held, mainly for pre- operative surgical cases, ante-natal cases and patients need- ing follow-up after discharge from hospital. There is adequate provision for physiotherapy and occupational therapy. The School of Nursing is the largest in the Colony and has a very high standard of teaching.
The Kowloon Hospital,- on the mainland, is a much smaller and considerably older institution which dates back to the time when Kowloon was merely a suburb of Hong Kong and when only limited medical facilities were con- sidered necessary. The buildings stand on a hill-top, one of the few open spaces in Kowloon, and are arranged in cottage- hospital style two-storied structures linked together by covered ways. As time has passed, more and more of these ward blocks have been erected (the latest only this year) until there is now a bed capacity of 313. Being the chief hospital on the mainland (where the population now exceeds that on the Island) the word 'busy' scarcely suffices to describe its condition. Both operating theatres and beds are grossly in- adequate for the work which needs to be done; and, were it not for the fact that it has been possible to use part of Lai Chi Kok Hospital to house convalescents as soon as they are fit to be moved, the parent hospital would not even be able to accept all the emergency cases (accidents and acutely ill) who present themselves. Planning is now far advanced for the new Kowloon Hospital of 1,300 beds which it is hoped will be completed in 1961.
A very large Out-patient Department is attached to the hospital and there is a Casualty Department which serves the whole of Kowloon. Busy as the similar department at Queen Mary Hospital is, this one easily out-rivals it. A
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