completion soon, thus making a total bed capacity of 1,140. As a result of the alteration and extension programme the pressure of admissions into public wards has been much relieved and the hospital is now provided with improved facilities as a teaching and specialized institution.

QUEEN ELIZABETH HOSPITAL

(Tables 48-49)

102. This hospital serves a population of approximately 24 million people living in Kowloon and the New Territories as a medical centre for emergency and specialist care.

103. During its sixth year of operation attendances at the casualty department rose by 10.5% compared with the previous year. Of these attendances 24% were due to uauma, the main causes being in order of frequency, domestic, industrial and traffic cases. 35% of all the cases seen in the casualty department required immediate admission to hospital and 7.7% were referred for admissions to other hospitals such as Kwong Wah Hospital and Lai Chi Kok Hospital. (Paragraph 166 below gives details of the operation of the casualty department of the Kwong Wah Hospital). The average time spent in the hospital by each in-patient was 6.8 days. Once tided over the acute episode of the illness, patients are either discharged or transferred to Kowloon or Lai Chi Kok Hospitals for convalescence. The pressure of admissions necessitated increasing the bed state to 1.525.

KOWLOON HOSPITAL

104. This hospital at present has 500 beds; an additional block con- (aining 600 beds is expected to be completed in October 1970. When completed there will be a total of 1,100 beds in this hospital as subsidiary accommodation for Queen Elizabeth Hospital and for chest diseases requiring both medical and surgical treatment. It will also contain an acute psychiatric ward and a paraplegic unit.

105. The pulmonary tuberculosis unit and the thoracic surgical unit in the hospital now have a total of 171 beds. Apart from treating patients suffering from tuberculosis the work of these two units, especially the surgical unit, includes also other aspects of thoracic surgery and non-tuberculosis disease.

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TSAN YUK HOSPITAL

(Table 50)

106. This hospital, under the clinical supervision of the Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the University of Hong Kong, is the main specialist obstetric hospital in Hong Kong. It has 241 beds and is the teaching centre in obstetrics for medical undergraduates and the training school for midwives.

107. About 89% of admissions were booked cases. These were mainly primigravidae, grand multiparae and cases with previous or present complications that required specialist care. The emergency admissions were referred mostly from Government Maternity Homes. There were 5.926 deliveries with no maternal deaths.

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICE

(Tables 51-52)

Castle Peak Hospital (Table 51)

108. This hospital of 1,242 beds was required to accommodate 1,700 patients at the end of the year. This is the only hospital in the Colony for the full-time care of psychiatric patients.

109. Continued efforts to turn the hospital into a modern therapeutic community have resulted in a judicious liberalization of control over palients. Except for two closed wards for patients involved in Court proceedings, most of the wards are in various degrees 'open', having Free access to their own gardens. Two wards are never locked, the patients housed therein being convalescent and receiving intensive atten- tion to prepare them for discharge. Some patients travel daily to Tsuen Wan and San Huj to work in factories for a short period of rehabilita- tion prior to final discharge and many are given permission to go freely within the hospital.

110. All modern treatments in psychiatry were given, but reliance was placed mainly on drug treatment and social measures. It became increasingly clear that maintenance treatment of many schizophrenics over a long period of time could result in a drop in the relapse rate. There was an increasing tendency to treat patients in psychiatric out- patients centres rather than admit them to hospital.

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111. Continued efforts were made to rehabilitate the long-stay and grossly mentally handicapped patients, the aim being to discharge them

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