8.
The plan calls for the integration of Family Planning Services into the already comprehensive Maternal and Child Health Programme which includes Ante-natal, Post-natal, Maternity Services and Health Education for the mothers as well as Special Infant and Toddlers Welfare Sessions and Preventive Immunization Schedules for their children.
9.
In accordance with its expanded responsibilities and functions as a result of the integration of Family Planning Services, the Maternal and Child Health Service is being reorganised into a "Family Health Service" headed by a Principal Medical and Health Officer with its own Headquarters Unit to co-ordinate and direct all aspects of this Service.
10.
Up to the end of March 1974, the second phase of the programme has been completed with family planning services being made available to eligible women at 11 Maternal & Child Health clinics. Eight of these were former Family Planning Association clinics while the three remaining ones were additional clinics which have been started during this period as part of the Medical and Health Department's plan of expansion in this field.
Methadone Maintenance
11.
The Medical and Health Department's methadone maintenance trial scheme became operational on December 1, 1972.
12.
This pilot study is to last three years, and will involve 1,550 patients. It is hoped that the trial will throw light on the efficacy of a relatively low dose of methadone as a substitute for heroin, namely the elimination of heroin hunger, heroin-seeking behaviour, and blockade against the euphoric actions of heroin. Furthermore, it is designed to study whether this method would be popular among the local addicts or not, and the reasons for their dropping out.
13.
In the first 16 months of the programme, 956 patients went
through the scheme.
Disablement and Aged
14.
Since last year, the Government has been operating a scheme to provide an allowance without a means test for the severely physically disabled and the elderly aged 75 and over. Although the scheme is administered by the Social Welfare Department, the Medical and Health Department is responsible for the assessment of the severity of the disability. A mumber of centres have been established for the assessment of different types of disability. The point to stress is that the elderly should be served in a variety of ways, helped to stand on their own feet, encouraged to feel they are still contributing to the community, and not placed in institutions unless this is absolutely necessary. Our objectives are largely in accordance with world trends in attitudes, both philosophic and practical, towards the problems posed by geriatrics.
Termination of Pregnancy
15.
The Offences Against the Person Ordinance came into force in April 1972 to afford more protection to doctors involved in the therapeutic termination of pregnancy. Following the publication of Regulations made under the amended Ordinance to allow 11 hospitals to carry out such therapeutic termina- tions, Notifications of cases performed were required as from February 1, 1973.
→
New Institutions :
16.
(1) Polyclinic for South Kvai Chung
After the opening of the first stage of this Polyclinic, work on the second stage has commenced. The first stage of this Folyclinic extended the Department's services to a section of the community in an area where there were formerly no convenient medical facilities. This development was also in step with the rapid increase in the population of Tsuen Wan and Kwai Chung in recent years. A standard urban clinic in north Kwai Chung has been in operation for three years for the benefit of residents in the northern parts of the township.
17.
The Polyclinic is named after the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, which was responsible for the capital cost of the project.
18.
19.
(2) Wa York Yu Clinic
This clinic was opened in February 1974.
Situated in Sheung Fung Street, Tsz Wan Shan, the three-storey clinic, consisting of a general out-patient department, a maternal and child health clinic and a 24-bed maternity home, serves the residents in the Tsz Wan Shan area.
20.
Hr. Wu York Yu was the late father of Messrs. Wu Yee-sun and Wu Jieh-yee, of the Wing Lung Bank, who generously donated half of the construction cost. Completion of this clinic is another example of public cooperation with the Government in the setting up of more medical institutions.
21.
(3) Sha Tau Kok Clinic
The Sha Tau Kok Clinic, completed in December 1973, is a standard rural clinic with a 7-bed maternity ward in Sha Tau Kok, New Territories. It replaces the original clinic within the closed area of Sha Tau Kok which occupied rented premises and did not have maternity facilities.
22.
This new clinic is a two-storey building providing general out-patient and maternity services for some 5,000 - 6,000 people inside and outside the Frontier Closed Area.
23.
(4) Fanling Hospital
On 1st April 1973, the Department took over this hospital from the Lutheran World Federation. This 54-bed Hospital is a three-storey building situated on a site close to the Jockey Club Road, between Fanling and Shek Ma Hai.
24.
(5) New Clinical Pathology Building, Queen Mary Hospital
A new Clinical Pathology Building in the Queen Mary Hospital compound was completed in August 1972 and became fully operational in 1973. This building was built to provide clinical pathology services, a virus Laboratory, a haematology service and a new mortuary.
25.
The laboratories are of the latest design and the equipment
most up to date.
3
Page