16
REVIEW
The University of Hong Kong has continued to expand both in the number of students enrolled and the range of courses it provides. Students reading for first and higher degrees had increased from 1,326 and 72 in 1961 to 2,902 and 352 in 1971. The Faculty of Medicine now has an annual intake of 150 students and a total student enrolment of 694, thus ranking as one of the largest medical schools in the Commonwealth. In 1968 a Faculty of Social Sciences was established which, among other subjects, offers a degree course in law leading to the LLB (Honours). Throughout the years in question a number of research centres have been set up in various fields, including the Centre of Asian Studies, and a wide range of research programmes carried out, many with relevance to Hong Kong.
Community leaders had felt for some time that there should be a second university in Hong Kong to provide not only for the advanced needs of a modern community, but also to specialise in Chinese literature and language and so far as possible to teach in that medium. The nucleus already existed in three post-secondary colleges and in October 1963 these federated to form The Chinese University of Hong Kong. One of the colleges, Chung Chi, was already established at Sha Tin, and a magnificent adjacent site is fast being developed to house the two other colleges and the main university complex.
三
It has often been remarked by visitors to Hong Kong that there is no National Health Service. Quite apart, however, from con- tractual obligations to its own servants as a model employer, the Government has always accepted an obligation to provide low-cost or free medical services for all who are unable to afford private treatment. Any person at all may attend a government clinic on payment of a nominal fee of $1, which includes drugs. Those who are admitted to the public wards of a government hospital pay a maximum maintenance fee of $2 a day which is less than the cost of the food, and even this is waived if the patient cannot afford it. These services are non-contributory and are met from general
revenue.
The scale of the facilities that should be provided to meet this commitment was assessed in 1964 as 4.25 hospital beds for every 1,000 of the population, and one standard urban clinic for every 100,000. The first of these aims has almost been achieved (the Queen Elizabeth Hospital opened in 1963 is one of the largest of its kind in the Commonwealth) and, once the hospitals now under construc- tion or planned have been completed, it will be passed. There are