73. The first Centre of the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation was under construction at Kwun Tong with funds provided by the United States Government during World Refugee Year. This Centre, together with the adjacent convalescent Home being built by the Hong Kong Branch of the British Red Cross Society, should be completed by the middle of 1962 and will accommodate 80 disabled patients initially. The convalescent home will accommodate some 60 crippled children.
The Mentally Handicapped
74. The treatment of mentally defective children should not be simply a matter of care and protection but of patient training to enable them to achieve some degree of self-control and usefulness in society. One result of Government's acceptance of the expert recommendations of Dr. L. T. HILLIARD on the care of the mentally sub-normal in Hong Kong was the opening at the Tsan Yuk Social Centre on 1st December, 1961 of the first day-training centre for mentally defective children. At this centre 23 children, later to be increased to 40, are now being trained in self-care, language development and social adjustment, while their parents are also advised and encouraged in the training of their retarded children at home. Even after a few short months, a positive and heartening atmosphere can be felt at this centre, where some at least of these unfortunate children are beginning to realize that they can learn and make progress.
75. The end of the year, the Department had records of 438 mentally sub-normal persons, (as against 276 in March 1961) of whom 70 were in residential care at North Point Camp, 52 of them children under 16. The remainder were living in their own families and were visited periodically.
76. The Mental Health Ordinance of 1960, which brings local legislation more into line with the modern attitude to mental disorders, enables the Director of Social Welfare to apply for temporary hospital care for mentally-ill persons who because of their mental state are unable to apply voluntarily for admission. The Department may also be called upon to assist in the after-care of homeless mental patients on discharge.
The Aged
77. On the whole, the care of old people in Hong Kong is not such a large and difficult problem as elsewhere, mainly because of the tradi- tional concept of the importance of the family and the strong sense
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