HEALTH
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The value of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital as a general hospital would, however, be seriously impaired if beds were occupied by traumatic and orthopaedic patients who were over the acute phase and in need of rehabilitation. The Kowloon Hospital, which has been caring in its limited accommodation for the rapidly increasing number of casualties and emergencies on the peninsula in recent years, will therefore be closed in order to undergo conversion into a tuberculosis and convalescent hospital, and will re-open late in 1964. It will be used primarily as a subsidiary to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for patients requiring convalescent nursing care and rehabilitation but 184 beds will be reserved for the care of tuberculosis patients from the mainland portion of the Colony and the hospital will serve as a centre for the thoracic and orthopaedic surgery of tuberculosis in Kowloon.
On Hong Kong Island Government maintains another large general hospital, the Queen Mary Hospital, which performs the same functions for that area as the Queen Elizabeth Hospital does for Kowloon; in addition, this hospital is the teaching hospital for the medical faculty of the University of Hong Kong. Both hospitals are training schools for nurses.
Other Government hospitals are maintained chiefly for special- ized purposes. These include a mental hospital of 1,119 beds, two infectious disease hospitals (one of which also accommodates con- valescent cases from Queen Elizabeth Hospital), a maternity hospital of 200 beds where the training of midwives and the teach- ing of medical students is carried out and a small hospital for the treatment of skin and venereal diseases in women and children. Two smaller general hospitals are provided. These are the St John Hospital of 100 beds on Cheung Chau Island and the one of 15 beds opened in 1960 on Lantau Island. Small hospitals are also maintained in four of the Colony's prisons and maternity beds for normal midwifery are provided in many Government clinics and dispensaries.
The Tung Wah Group of Hospitals is an entirely Chinese chari- table organization under the management of an annually elected board of directors. Founded some 90 years ago, it operates a group of four hospitals-the Tung Wah Hospital, the Tung Wah Eastern Hospital, the Sandy Bay Infirmary and the Kwong Wah