10
REVIEW
policies, a Housing Board was established in June 1965 under the chairmanship of an unofficial member of the Legislative Council.
THE MEDICAL SCENE
If the years 1956-66 have witnessed a massive increase in the provision of housing by the government, or with government sup- port, as well as by private enterprise, the same period has produced an equally significant change in the medical scene. As we have already noted, the main effort had previously gone into the pre- vention of communicable disease (the success of which was to be reflected in the speed with which cholera outbreaks between 1961 and 1964 were effectively brought under control), the promotion of maternal and child health and the prevention and cure of pulmo- nary tuberculosis. The main characteristic of the past 10 years has been the acceptance of a more positive role in the provision and support of curative services in accordance with a well-defined policy, so that the resources of finance and trained manpower could be properly planned.
In 1957, the first long-term outline plan for the development of medical and health services was prepared. Subsequently a planning unit was set up in the Medical Department headquarters to enable planning to be more effectively and continuously carried out. A programme for 1960-5 was based on the assumption that addi- tional hospitals and clinics should be provided only for that part of the population which could not afford to pay economic charges, assessed at 50 per cent of the population for outpatient care and 80 per cent for inpatient treatment. It was proposed that greater effort should be concentrated on the building of clinics rather than hospitals in the first instance, as clinic outpatient facilities could be provided more quickly than new hospitals and could undertake important functions in the control and prevention of communicable diseases. This plan was approved in principle and many projects were well under way when the results of the 1961 census showed a need for further re-thinking. The year 1963, therefore, came to be adopted as the new base line and a wholly revised development plan for 1963-72 was proposed in the white paper on 'Development of Medical Services in Hong Kong'. A Medical Development Plan Standing Committee was appointed in 1964 to keep the programme under review.