Kowloon. Senior public health personnel of the Medical Depart- ment are seconded to the Urban Council for duty in the urban areas over which the Urban Council has jurisdiction.
32. A medical officer of health advises the District Administration in the New Territories which is a rural area containing several small townships.
Urban Areas.
33. Under the control of a Senior Health Officer, two Health Officers, seconded to the Urban Council, have respon- sibilities on Hong Kong Island and in Kowloon. Also in those areas are Senior Health Inspectors and Health Inspectors employed by the Urban Council. This staff is generally
supervised by the Deputy Director of Health Services,
34. For purposes of public health administration the urban areas are divided into districts and these in their turn into sub- districts each of which is the responsibility of a Health Inspector. In Hong Kong there are sixty-two sub-districts and in Kowloon twenty-five. The Health Inspector is responsible for the general sanitary supervision of his sub-district, the investigation of infectious disease and the carrying out of dis- infection and disinfestation.
35. A pest control officer is responsible for anti-rodent measures in the urban areas,
36. The department is also responsible for anti-epidemic work, health education of the public, port health work, the operation of maternal and child health services which includes a school health programme, social hygiene work, tuberculosis and malaria and mosquito control.
Rural Areas.
37. The Medical Officer of Health, New Territories has under his jurisdiction an area of some 350 square miles which includes numerous islands and has a population of about 200,000.
38. His staff consists of a Senior Health Inspector and five Health Inspectors each of whom is responsible for a district of the New Territories wherein he supervises all public health matters.
HYGIENE & SANITATION.
Refuse Removal & Conservancy Services.
39. In the urban areas of Victoria and Kowloon respon- sibility for environmental hygiene lies with the Urban Council. In the New Territories this work is directly the responsibility of the Medical Department. Throughout the Colony public health staff were faced during the year, as in the previous year, with problems of greater magnitude probably than those encountered in most other cities of the world. The capacity of virtually every building in the urban areas and in the townships of the New Territories was over-taxed and gross overcrowding was general. In these circumstances the work of the health inspector was anything but easy and it is not surprising that in certain areas in the Colony the general sanitation left much to be desired. Refuse removal and conservancy services operated satisfactorily but in the circumstances of overcrowding which exist it cannot be expected that conditions were entirely satis- factory in those areas in which the bucket conservancy system operated. Disposal of night soil was in general satisfactory but a certain amount of unmatured night soil undoubtedly found its way to the fields of cultivators.
40. Refuse removal and disposal in the urban area were carried out efficiently but in certain of the townships in the New Territories these services left much to be desired as these town- ships have grown rapidly in recent years and have outstripped the cleansing organization.
Housing.
41. Building activity during the year was very considerable but, with the exception of houses built in squatter resettlement areas, to which reference will be made later, and a few blocks of workmen's flats, the vast majority of the domestic premises erected were of an expensive nature and did little to meet the needs of those most requiring accommodation.
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