HEALTH
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home, and health visitors also go to the homes of newborn babies whose names appear in monthly birth returns. Health education forms an important part of this work and includes practical demon- strations, talks, film shows and individual advice to mothers. Immunization against smallpox, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, poliomyelitis and tuberculosis is offered at all centres.
The School Medical Service is operated by the School Medical Service Board, an independent body incorporated by ordinance. Essentially, the scheme offers a service whereby participating school children receive medical treatment from private medical practitioners for the small sum of $7 a year. This per capita fee does not meet the cost of the service, and the government contributes an equal sum as well as the cost of administrative expenses. At the end of the year 53,422 students attending schools were enrolled in the serviceland 231 private medical practitioners were participat- ing. The scheme is kept under continuous critical review in order to improve its services.
The School Health Service, which has been in existence since 1927, continues as a government responsibility and is concerned with the sanitary condition of school premises, the control of communicable diseases and the health education of children, teachers and parents. In August 1966 the work of the School Health Service was taken over by the 12 area health officers who, apart from their normal duties, act as medical officers of schools.
MENTAL HEALTH
The Castle Peak Hospital for psychiatric patients, with 1,119 beds, was required to accommodate an average of some 1,360 patients daily during most of the year. Significant relief to the congestion will be provided by the addition of two ward blocks of 120 beds each, giving a total of 1,359 beds early next year. Psychi- atric cases from the whole Colony are admitted to the hospital, the great majority being voluntary patients. Outpatient treatment is available on Hong Kong Island, in Kowloon and in the New Territories, and day patients are also treated in the psychiatric centre on Hong Kong Island. A psychiatric observation unit is operated in the Victoria Remand Prison and there is one ward for very low-grade mentally subnormal children in the Tung Wah Hospital.