Queen Elizabeth Hospital enabled waiting lists to be reduced to almost negligible proportions. Towards the end of the year under review a new ophthalmic centre was opened at the Yau Ma Tei Polyclinic.
118. During the year, 420 persons were first registered as blind, a drop from the 467 recorded in 1965. Of the 420 persons recorded during the year only twenty-two were in children under fifteen years of age and most of them were recent arrivals from Mainland China. Following successful operations, some sixty-three patients were removed from the register.
119. Trends of previous years in the causation of blindness were continued, with increasing frequency of the eye diseases of advancing age and a reduction in those caused by deficiency states and trauma; senile cataract and glaucoma have replaced keratomalacia as the pre- dominant causes, and amongst children, the main cause of blindness is congenital defect, while blindness due to keratomalacia is now com- paratively rare.
PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICE
(Sec table 62)
120. This service supplies all Government medical institutions with pharmaceutical preparations, drugs, dressings, surgical instruments, medical gases, etc. In addition to the usual in-patient and out-patient dispensing services provided in hospitals and clinics, two manufacturing units are maintained, one on the island and one in Kowloon for the preparation in bulk of a wide variety of pharmaceuticals. In the two largest hospitals, sterile preparation units supply all the hospital depart- ments with their requirements for all intravenous fluids and with an extensive range of injections.
121. The Central Sterile Supply Department at Queen Elizabeth Hospital is gradually being extended to include the requirements of Kowloon Hospital. Another Central Sterile Supply Department has been opened in the new theatre block at Queen Mary Hospital. The latter Department at present serves the needs of the new theatre block only. but plans are being made to expand its service to meet the requirements of the entire hospital. A new pharmacy department has also been opened in the new theatre block at Queen Mary Hospital.
122. The service is responsible for inspections under the various ordinances concerned with Dangerous Drugs, Poisons and Antibiotics.
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During the year the scope of these activities has increased to include an additional inspector who has been trained for duties under the Public Health and Urban Services Ordinance and will inspect premises in con- nexion with sale of sub-standard pharmaceutical preparations.
MEDICAL SOCIAL WORK
123. The expansion of the medical services and the increasing emphasis on rehabilitation in its various aspects necessitated a large intake of staff during the year. To meet the need for training new entrants as well as for development of skills and knowledge throughout the section, a senior member of the staff was assigned to be responsible for a programme of staff development and student training. During the year 2 Medical Social Workers returned after one year's post-graduate training in United Kingdom, and another from the United States, also after one year's training. In staff training locally, full use has been made of Extra Mural Courses, several of which have been designed especially for social workers and the cost was met by Government. Lectures were given by the Medical Social Workers in the courses of training of nurses, physiotherapists and medical students. In addition all possible assistance was given to the two universities in the training of university social work students.
124. Io the Tuberculosis Service, the development of Health Visitors of the work concerned with the public health and preventive aspects of this disease has enabled the Medical Social Workers, working on a refer- ral and selection basis, to concentrate more on the purely social work angles. Much more time is being spent by Medical Social Workers in hospitals, and the stationing of Medical Social Workers at the Grantham Hospital and Ruttonjee Sanatorium was started during the year.
125. Work at the Kowloon Jockey Club Rehabilitation Centre has been developed during the year with the placement of two full-time Medical Social Workers at the Centre. Much of their time is spent with child patients and their parents, who need encouragement to persevere with treatment, and help and guidance in accepting permanent disability. The newly developed community services such as the Save the Children's Fund Nursery, the Red Cross Day School and the Peace Clinic's Hostel for handicapped children, have given full co-operation to the centre and contributed much help to the patients.
126. Medical Social Workers in the hospitals have continued to work with patients and families throughout hospitalization towards the
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