PUBLIC HEALTH
169
network of Radio Hong Kong at a favourable listening time.
OPHTHALMIC SERVICE
The Government Ophthalmic Service is based upon two major ophthalmic clinics in the urban area, equipped with operating theatres and investigation and treatment rooms, from which radiates out a specialist service of eight regular out-patient centres which hold 28 sessions monthly in the outlying dispensaries of the New Territories. The Service's policy is based on the realization_that 75% of the blindness in Hong Kong is preventable. There has therefore to be brought to all parts of the Colony an effective specialist service fully integrated with the public health programmes.
The personnel of the Government Ophthalmic Service consist of one Ophthalmic Specialist, four medical officers in ophthalmology, two almoners, one sister, five ophthalmic nurses and two ophthalmic male nurses, one dispenser, and four sight-testing or dispensing opticians.
-
=
The Tung Wah Group of Hospitals employs three part- time ophthalmologists who hold out-patient clinics once weekly with fortnightly operating sessions. The University employs one part-time ophthalmologist for two sessions weekly. There are some 14, other doctors in the Colony practising ophthalmology, mainly as refractionists in private practice. The Armed Forces Specialists in ophthalmology practise in their spare time as refractionists.
Į
The two major Government Ophthalmic Clinics hold daily out-patient clinics, with attendances sometimes of nearly 400 persons at one clinic. There are daily operating sessions in each clinic, and the total of major and inter- mediate ophthalmic operation procedures each year is about 3,000. There are ten ophthalmic beds available in the Government Hospitals. Three sight-saving refraction centres treat ophthalmic defect or disease amongst the Colony's school-children. There is one central optical workshop which,