RADIOLOGICAL, SERVICES
(Tables 56-57)
129, The Medical and Health Department Institute of Radiology operates a service comprising Radiodiagnosis, Radiotherapy including the use of radioisotopes in the diagnosis and treatment of certain diseases, Radiation Physics, which provides a film badge radiation monitoring service for the whole Colony in addition to its other routine duties, Clinical photography, and Radiobiology, which is essentially a research section engaged in investigating radiotherapeutic problems in order to improve its effectiveness. The Institute serves mainly Govern- ment institutions but free consultant services are available to the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals and the Pok Oi Hospital in the New Territories. Consultant services are also available to medical practi- tioners in private practice. The Institute also undertakes the teaching of medical students of the University of Hong Kong in the fundamentals of Radiodiagnosis and Radiotherapy and operates a Colony-wide Cancer Registry.
130. With the enactment of regulations under the Radiation Ordin- ance on 1st October, 1965, a programme of inspection of premises. including hospitals where irradiating apparatus and radioactive sub- stances are used by registered medical and dental practitioners outside Government Service for medical purposes, was commenced. A number of factories employing irradiating apparatus or radioactive substances for industrial use are also visited. This programme of visits continued throughout the year under review, advice on the improvement of radiation protection facilities being given where required, and subsequent visits being paid to ensure that improvements suggested had been carried out. In May 1968, the Institute commenced a co-operative research programme with the International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyons, France, on the possible role of virus in the development of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The cost of this research is being borne by the International Agency through the Hong Kong Anti-Cancer Society. The research programme continucs.
OPHTHALMOLOGY
(Tables 58-59)
131. This service maintains three full-time centres with surgical facilities and in addition holds regular sessions at out-patient clinics in urban and rural areas. 54% of the major operations were performed
36
on an out-patient basis, and increased availability of beds enabled waiting lists to remain at almost negligible proportions.
132. During the year the number of persons first registered as blind fell further from 279 in the previous year to 220, including 17 under the age of 15 years. Following successful operations 19 patients were removed from the register.
133. Trends of previous years in the causation of blindness con- tinued, with increasing frequency of the eye diseases of advancing age, and reduction in those caused by deficiency states and trauma: senile cateract and glaucoma have replaced keratomalacia as the predominant causes; amongst children the main cause of blindness is congenital defect, while blindness due to keratomalacia is now comparatively rare.
PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICE
(Table 60)
134. This service is concerned with the enforcement of the Ordinance dealing with Dangerous Drugs, Pharmacy and Poisons, and Antibiotics as well as the control, manufacture and supply of drugs and the supply of dressings, medical and surgical instruments and sundries to hospitals. clinics, health centres and other units of the Department. Two main depots, one in Hong Kong Island and one in Kowloon, manufacture and distribute some 250 different types of pharmaceutical products to these institutions. In the two largest hospitals sterile preparation units supply all the hospital departmems with their requirements of all intravenous fluids and with an extensive range of injections.
135. Central sterile supply departments are maintained at Queen Mary Hospital on Hong Kong Island and at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kowloon. These are gradually being extended to include the sterile requirements of other hospitals.
MEDICAL SOCIAL WORK
136. The expansion of the medical services and the increasing emphasis on rehabilitation in its various aspects continued to make heavy demands on the services of medical Social Workers. In the Tuberculosis Service the maintenance by Health Visitors of the work concerned with the public health and preventive aspects of this discase continued to enable the Medical Social Workers working on a referral
37