HEALTH
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maintains clinical pathology and public health laboratory services. The Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth hospitals maintain blood banks and the Hong Kong Branch of the British Red Cross Society operates a blood collecting centre for voluntary blood donation. Laboratory work for these blood banks is carried out by the Institute of Pathology. The Government Chemist is responsible for the work of an analytical laboratory which undertakes a wide range of investigations concerned with food, narcotics and medico-legal work as well as a considerable amount of non-medical investigation.
OUTPATIENT CLINICS
To meet the increasing demand for treatment by modern Western medicine, the outpatient services provided mainly by the govern- ment, and also by subsidized organizations and private agencies, are developing steadily. Many charitable and missionary clinics provide treatment either free or at a nominal cost. Numerous organizations, particularly the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, continue to take an active interest in medical and health problems. A large number of outpatient clinics are supported by kaifong, district and clansmen's associations. Commercial concerns and trade unions also operate clinics for their members.
Three new government clinics were opened during the year and the government now maintains 40 clinics for general outpatients. Specialist facilities, available in the major centres in the urban areas, are provided in the New Territories by visiting teams from Hong Kong and Kowloon. Mobile dispensaries and floating clinics take medical services to the more remote areas of the New Terri- tories, especially the isolated villages on the eastern and western coasts. The flying doctor service, another means by which doctors and nurses visit such areas, continued during the year.
Since the Medical Clinics Ordinance 1963 came into effect in January 1964, 475 private clinics have been granted registration, of which 393 were exempted from employing registered doctors. The power conferred on the Registrar of Clinics to grant exemption ceases to operate after three years, and an advisory committee was therefore appointed by the Governor in June 1965 to review the operation of the ordinance, particularly in respect of the clinics registered with exemption. In March 1966