PUBLIC HEALTH
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Jockey Club during the year undertook to provide buildings to the value of $8,025,000, which when complete will be handed over to Government and maintained by the Medical and Health Department.
The estimated recurrent expenditure, including subventions, represents 9.69% of Government's total estimated recurrent ex- penditure. This does not include the expenditure on environmental sanitation by the Urban Services Department and by the District Administration of the New Territories.
Professional Registers. There are five statutory bodies dealing with the registration of medical practitioners, dentists, pharmacists, nurses and midwives. The Hong Kong Medical Council is respon- sible for the registration of medical practitioners and has respon- sibilities in connexion with disciplinary proceedings and offences; it is not an examining body. The Dental Council, Pharmacy Board, Nurses Board and Midwives Board all maintain registers, regulate training, hold examinations leading to registration or enrolment and have disciplinary powers.
During the year the Dental Registration Ordinance, 1940 was repealed and re-enacted in amended form by the Dentist's Regis- tration Ordinance, 1959. The former Board has been replaced by a Dental Council and the new Ordinance brings dental legislation into line with that enacted for the medical profession in 1957. An important innovation is the power to prescribe regulations for the establishment of classes of ancillary dental workers and to define their qualifications, scope of work, and titles.
Towards the end of the year the Society of Apothecaries in London again held qualifying examinations in Hong Kong for the L.M.S.S.A. to which 106 unregistered doctors were admitted. For the practical and oral examinations which started during the last week in November, the Society's examiners came out from London; associate examiners were appointed by the Society from amongst the staff of the Medical Faculty of the University of Hong Kong. Thirty nine unregistered doctors passed in all parts of the examination and a further 45 passed in one or more subjects. There is now a total of 83 doctors who have obtained the L.M.S.S.A. qualification in Hong Kong during the past two years as a result of this special arrangement with the Society of