12
REVIEW
Relief of Disabled Children's Home and the John F. Kennedy Spastic Children's Centre, built by funds donated by the World Rehabilitation Fund and administered by the Hong Kong Red Cross. Progress was made in the private field with the provision of five hospitals and homes yielding 250 beds. These were built by various Christian missions and are situated mainly in the rural
areas.
Sixteen outpatient and maternity and child health clinics were built by the government in the urban areas, most of them contain- ing maternity homes and many incorporating other specialized facilities, such as chest and X-ray centres and dental services, while one unit serves as a rehabilitation centre for the Kowloon area by providing prosthetic, occupational, and physiotherapeutic facilities. In the same period, eight such clinics were built in the rural and developing areas of the New Territories. Many of these institutions were built with the aid of generous donations from private citizens and, notably, the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club. The clinics opened during the period by private doctors, missionary and health groups and others are too numerous to list in detail, but many provide essential services at little or no cost to the patients.
The number of hospital and clinic beds thus rose between 1956 and 1966 from 5,271 to 13,366, and increased the number of beds per thousand of the population from 2.25 to 3.6.
Improvement in public health has also progressed over the past decade, although much still remains to be done. Between 1956 and 1966 the maternal mortality rate fell from 0.90 per thousand births to 0.43, and the infant mortality rate from 60.9 per thousand live births to 24.9. In 1956 the specific death rate from tuberculosis was 111.1 per 100,000 and by 1966 had been reduced to 40.8, while in the same period the proportion of tuberculosis deaths occurring below the age of five fell from 25 per cent to 2.7 per cent. Between 1956 and 1966 the number of hospital beds had increased by 142 per cent and there was a markedly increased rate of turnover of inpatients. Between two and four outpatient clinics were being opened each year, but the demand-amounting to 7 million attendances in 1965--on these, the mobile clinics, floating clinics and helicopter service, continued to outstrip supply.