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HEALTH
yet commenced. On completion of all three phases some 700 beds will be available. The second is a 275-bed project at Sandy Bay, completed at the end of the year, which in part replaces previously existing but very dilapidated accommodation; 200 beds in this institution will be available for convalescent patients from the nearby Queen Mary Hospital.
The Pok Oi Hospital near Yuen Long in the New Territories is another long-established charitable organization operating with the assistance of a government subvention. A new three-storey ward block, brought into operation at the end of the year, provides improved and expanded facilities especially for maternity and paediatric patients, the foundations being designed to carry, if required, an additional four storeys. Further expansion plans are under consideration.
Among the general hospitals maintained by missionary and other charitable organizations are the Caritas Medical Centre of 508 beds, the Maryknoll Hospital of 80 beds in Kowloon, the Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital of 306 beds, and the Sandy Bay Children's Orthopaedic Hospital of 100 beds. Several of these institutions receive substantial financial assistance from the government while others are supported in varying degrees by fees, voluntary donations and grants from missionary funds. In some cases, where a propor- tion of low-cost or free beds is maintained and where any excess of income over expenditure is used for hospital development, land is granted without premium and rates are refunded through govern- ment subvention. Some of these hospitals have extensive expansion plans, and in the case of the four mentioned above these are well under way.
SPECIALIST SERVICES
In government hospitals there are clinical specialists in anaesthe- tics; chest surgery; dentistry; ear, nose and throat diseases; eye dis- eases, general medicine, general surgery, neurosurgery; obstetrics and gynaecology; orthopaedic surgery; psychiatry; pathology; radio- diagnosis and radiotherapy. There are also the specialized clinics for tuberculosis and social hygiene, together with specialist services offered by the Government Chemist's laboratory and the forensic pathology laboratory. The Government Institute of Pathology