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HEALTH
Many voluntary bodies and welfare organisations, particularly the Hong Kong Dental Society and the St John Ambulance Brigade, maintain free or low-cost dental clinics and many dentists give their services free. The Church World Service, the Lutheran World Service and Caritas operate fully-equipped static and mobile dental clinics.
OPHTHALMIC SERVICE
Based upon three full-time outpatient centres, equipped with operating, investigation and treatment rooms, this service operates on a sessional basis in the urban areas and in the outlying districts of the New Territories. Additionally, ophthalmic surgery is per- formed in two government hospitals in which 31 beds are reserved for ophthalmic cases. The staff of the Ophthalmic Service also deal with ophthalmic emergencies at three casualty departments situated at the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth and Kwong Wah Hospitals.
The degrees of MB, BS, conferred by the University of Hong Kong, have been recognised for registration by the General Medical Council of the United Kingdom since 1911. During recent years the Medical Faculty has expanded to cope with an annual intake of 120 medical students to meet the increasing needs of the Colony for doctors. Post-graduate clinical training is available in the Colony for higher qualifications awarded by most of the examining bodies in Great Britain, and is supervised by a panel for post-graduate medical education, consisting of university and government staff members. Due mainly to this programme almost all of the specialist appointments in the Medical and Health Department are now held by locally-recruited staff.
Hong Kong has no local facilities for training in dentistry, but a government dental scholarship scheme enables a number of students from Hong Kong to go overseas each year to study dentistry. This scheme commenced in 1954; 81 scholarships have been awarded.
There are three government hospital schools of nursing, two in general nursing and one in psychiatric nursing. Training at govern- ment schools and at the Caritas Hospital school is in English, but there are also approved schools at Tung Wah Hospital, the Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital and the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital, where instruction is in Cantonese. Examinations are