7
Health
THE people of Hong Kong continued to enjoy, in the main, good health during the year 1969. Notifications of diphtheria and malaria continued to decline while the incidence of poliomyelitis remained satisfactorily low. The anti-measles vaccination drive which was launched in December 1967 began to show an encouraging result, and the measles epidemic expected in the winter of 1968-9 did not materialise. A minor outbreak of cholera occurred in July. The outbreak was quickly contained by vigorous public health measures and an energetic inoculation drive.
The mortality pattern remained one in which fewer deaths were due to communicable diseases and more resulted from the diseases of later life, predominantly cancer, heart diseases and cerebrovascular lesions.
The Development Programme of the Medical and Health Depart- ment continued to make steady progress. In April the new Tang Shiu Kin Hospital at Morrison Hill was opened. This provides, in addition to casualty facilities for which there is a rising demand, services formerly carried out at the Eastern Public Dispensary and Maternity Home, the Harcourt Health Centre and the Wan Chai Social Hygiene Female Clinic. The latter three clinic premises were subsequently closed. The fifth of the five phases of the alteration programme of Queen Mary Hospital was completed, bringing the hospital bed capacity to 1,086 beds. Work on a new maternity unit of 54 beds in the same hospital was under way. Substantial progress was achieved in the planning of many other government projects, including polyclinics for Kowloon East and Tsuen Wan/Kwai Chung areas, a standard urban clinic for Kwai Chung North, a new Vaccine Institute, a large general hospital and a large mental hospital in the Lai Chi Kok area, and a rehabilitation and health centre in the Sai Ying Pun district. Construction work on the Siu Lam Hospital for the mentally subnormal and the extension to Kowloon Hospital were in progress.