REVIEW
13
September 1959. During the year under review, 66,440 additional school places were provided, most of them in 140 new schools. The revised estimate of total expenditure on education was $107 million or about 14.8% of the Colony's estimated total expendi- ture. Since 1946, various non-Government organizations have opened over 1,000 schools in the Colony usually with financial assistance from the Government. Currently, one new school is being opened in the Colony every two weeks; and the Government itself is opening a new primary school every two months.
The last of the four services chosen to illustrate the present scale of Hong Kong's effort in the social field is the medical and health service. A fair measure of the overall success of the public health services generally during the period since the war is the fact that, in spite of heavily over-crowded conditions, no serious epidemic has ever developed. Although this fortunate record is partially, perhaps even largely, due to the methods of food prepa- ration customary amongst the Chinese, (they are scrupulous in their preference for fresh food and boiled water) such measures are not, of course, adequate in themselves to guard against all epidemic diseases, and continual alertness is necessary.
The relevant chapters of this Report record the details of the battle to improve the health of the population, and, as before, the intention here is merely to give some idea of the scale of the effort that is going into the struggle. In 1949, there were 11 Government hospitals in the Colony, having a total of 1,750 beds: there were also 2,150 beds in Government-assisted and private hospitals, and the total number of hospital beds available was 3,900. By the end of 1959, there were 12 Government hospitals having 2,212 beds; Government-assisted and private hospitals, clinics and dispensaries had 5,490 beds and the total number of beds available was 7,702. The number of beds available has, however, long been recognized as inadequate, and in 1955 the Government decided to prepare plans for a large new general hospital, which is now under con- struction. During the year Her Majesty the Queen graciously gave permission for this hospital to be called the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Kowloon; and His Royal Highness the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, laid the foundation stone in March 1959. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital is expected to be completed about the end of 1962, and the total capital cost will be at least $62 million.