· 6 ·
The Princess Margaret Hospital became fully operational in April 1977. The Hospital serves mainly the West New Territories and has contributed towards easing the demand for services at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. The Department's first cornea transplant unit was set up at the Princess Margaret Hospital.
Casualty attendances et government hospitals totalled 505,603, an increase of 17% compared with the previous year; the number of in-patients trested was 281,390, an increase of 9%.
VI. CLINIC SERVICES
General and Specialist Out-patient
(Tables 54 - 64)
Pressure remained heavy throughout the year on all 52 general out-patient clinice and also on specialist clinica. The general out-patient attendance was 4.17 million, a drop of 4% compared with the previous year while specialist attendance was 5.47 million, an increase of 3%. Trends of the demand for services during the past ten years are shown in Figure 11. More clinic sessions have been operating on week-day evenings and on Sundays and public holidays at various selected clinics to meet the growing demand since June, 1977.
Psychiatry
New attendances at government psychiatric clinics totalled 3,315, an increase of 1% over that of 1976. Total attendances amounted to 135,700, & decrease of 0.5% compared with the previous year,
The concept of treating patienta in day and out-patient centres has proved to be successful. Four day-patient centres supplement the in-patient services at the hospitals. During the year 488 day patients were treated, OphthalmologX
There are two main out-patient centres and a number of part-time clinics. During the year the total attendance was 268,209, a decrease of 0.49% as compared with the previous year. The number of persons first registered as blind was 572, compared with 687 in the previous year.
Ear, Nose and Throat
The service is regionalised into the Hong Kong and outlying islands division based at Queen Mary Hospital and the Kowloon and New Territories
7
division based at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. During 1977, total outpatient attendance was 61,779, an increase of 6% compared with the previous year
Child Assessœent
The Arran Street Child Assessment and Hearing Aid Clinic became operational in October 1977. It provides comprehensive assessment of handicapped children under the age of 12.
Dental Service
The dental service operates 31 clinics. A total of 285.695 attendances were recorded, an increase of 4% as compared with the previous
year.
District Midwifery
12.2% of births were delivered at government maternity homes and 4.1* in private maternity homes. These figures show a decrease compared with the previous year as more expectant mothers favour to attend hospitals for confinement.
School Medical Service
On 31st March 1978 the number of pupile participating was 111,494 from 747 schools, compared with 106,193 from 756 schools on the same date in the previous year. Medical practitioners taking part in the scheme numbered 202 compared with 208.
Registration of Clinics
There were 82 registered static clinics, two registered mobile clinics in the charge of registered medical practitioners, and 320 clinice registered with exemption making a total of 404 on 31st March 1978.
Pathology
VII.
SPECIAL SERVICES
(Tables 65 - 71)
The Institute of Pathology operates a number of clinical and public health laboratories, blood banks and mortuaries. During the year the total number of examinations undertaken by the Institute of Fathology was 3.90 million, an increase of 24% compared with the previous year; this excludes teste done for Queen Mary Hospital which is served by the Department of
Page