their efficiency. The first to be so replaced will be the main polyclinic at Sai Ying Pun which is also the main teaching centre for medical students in out-patient practice and for the rebuilding of which the Hong Kong Jockey Club has made a very generous donation. The same generous donor bas also provided funds for replacing the rural health centre at Tai Po. The other polyclinic on the island is the Violet Peel polyclinic. at which the main ophthalmic out-patient service on the island operates, in addition to the general out-patient services. Other visiting specialists also conduct special services. The premises ure again inadequate and far from convenient for the volume of work done but the clinic is very conveniently situated for the public. The only polyclinie on the mainland is the Kowloon Hospital Out-patient Department which is the most hard pressed of any clinic and at which hundreds of patients have to be turned away daily because of sheer physical inability to handle any more. At all of these clinics and most of the urban dispensaries the medical staff work in shifts from 9 a.m. to midnight. Details of the work done are attached at Appendices 8, 9, 10 and 11.
The Pathological Service.
115. The Government pathology service for the Colony comprises work carried out in the Pathological Institute on the island, and in a subsidiary institute at Kowloon Hospital on the mainland. There are, in addition, 3 small clínical laboratories: 1 at the Queen Mary Hospital, 1 at the Lai Chi Kok Hospital and 1 at the Tsan Yuk Hospital. The Institute's responsibilities also include supervision of the Blood Bank and daily post- mortem examinations in the 2 public mortuaries, Victoria Public Mortuary and Kowloon Public Mortuary. Specimens examined in 1956 aumbered 287,323-an increase of 30,730 over the previous year's figures. There has been a steady annual increase since 1946, Serological tests for syphilis alone reached the record figure of 108,807, whilst bacteriological diagnostic work connected with tuberculosis set another record with the figure of 50,584. The VDRL flocculation slide test, the routine test used, continues to be satisfactory. The Kahn Test is used as a confirmatory test in special cases. There were 11 Friedman
38
tests and 651 frog tests and 2,015 examinations of an unclassified nature were carried out. These included 15 analyses of anti- biotics for potency. Nasal smeurs for M. leprae: 1,125 examinations gave 426 positive resulta. 16,490 examinations were made of rat spleen smears for P. pestis, with no positive findings.
116. The following table sets out the growth in the volume of work done since 1960:-
1946
1947
1948
TABLE 9
Annual Number of Specimens. Exumninel
1949
1950
1951
1950
--,*F-་ -- -་
1953
195-1
1956
72,799
107,335
120,775
128,542
149,250
207.646
214,026
239,943
256,503
287,323
117. The vaccines produced in 1955 were: —
Anti-smallpox vaccine
ΤΗ
cholera
++
5
typhoid-paratyphoid (Adult)
11,184 ml.
102,700
*
(Children)
31
rabic vaccine (2)
49,970
(4%)
$6,000
• |
plague
Rinderpest
23,500
28,150
P
Diluted tuberculin
39
$11,504 mi.