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HEALTH
On Hong Kong Island, the Government maintains another large general hospital, the Queen Mary Hospital, which performs the same functions for the island as the Queen Elizabeth Hospital does for Kowloon, and is also the teaching hospital for the Medical Faculty of the University of Hong Kong. The hospital's phased programme of alterations, designed ultimately to increase the hospital bed capacity to 1,140 and to provide improved facilities, was practically completed during the year. Planning for a new pathology building, virus laboratory and mortuary in the same hospital is under way.
Other government hospitals are maintained chiefly for specialised purposes. Apart from the Castle Peak Hospital they include two infectious disease hospitals and a maternity hospital of 292 beds, where the teaching of medical students and training of midwives is carried out. The new Tang Shiu Kin Hospital provides casualty service as well as facilities for maternal and child health, social hygiene and maternity services. Two smaller general hospitals are maintained, one on Cheung Chau Island and the other on Lantau Island. Small hospitals are also established in the Colony's prisons, and maternity beds for normal midwifery are provided in many government clinics and dispensaries.
The Tung Wah Group of Hospitals is a long-established charitable organisation. It operates three general hospitals, the Tung Wah, the Tung Wah Eastern and the Kwong Wah with a total of 2,325 beds, and a convalescent hospital of 503 beds at Sandy Bay. It also provides subsidiary beds for long term patients at Wong Tai Sin Infirmary. These hospitals, whose recurrent expenditure is met mainly by a large subvention from the Government, provide a valuable contibution to the Colony's medical facilities and are gradually being modernised and expanded.
The Pok Oi Hospital, near Yuen Long in the New Territories, is another long-established charitable organisation operating with the assistance of a government subvention. It has been modernised and expanded.
A number of the general hospitals are maintained by missionary and other charitable organisations such as the Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital, Caritas Medical Centre at So Uk, Our Lady