bodies in the United Kingdom, have been active in this respect. The Medical Board considered a complaint of infamous conduct io a professional respect against one registered practitioner and recorded a verdict of guilty which was however upset on appeal to the Governor in Council, while the Dental Board found three deatists guilty of unprofessional conduct during the year under review. The extreme penalty for unprofessional conduct is to have the offender's name struck permanently from the register, in which case he is permanently debarred from practising his profession in the Colony. Minor offences against professional ethics are punishable by censure or temporary suspension from the register. In all cases the finding of the Board and penalty imposed is published in the Government Gazette for public information.
Expenditure.
6. The Medical Department's actual expenditure for the financial year ending 31st March, 1957, was $80,048,868.19 but to obtain a true figure of the Government's expenditure on medical services a further $7,431,262.91 should be added to this. This sum was paid to the voluntary organizations in the Colony that provide hospital and other public health services. These include the Anti-Tuberculosis Association ($550,000), the Mission to Lepers Hong Kong Auxiliary, ($480,000), the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, which receive the main subvention of $6,140,669, and other smaller institutions such as the Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital which receives a subvention of $150,000. Combined expenditure on account of the Medical Department and medical subventions was approximately 7.98% of the Colony's total actual expenditure. This expenditure of course does not cover the whole of the Government spending on health as it does not include the very considerable budget of the Urban Services Department or that of any other Department active in health administration.
Health Legislation.
7. The following legislation administered by the Medical Department was enacted during the year 1956-57:-
Ordinance:
(e) Births and Deaths Registration (Amendment) Ordin-
ance No. 9 of 1957.
Rules & Regulations:
5.
(a) Nurses Registration (Amendment) Regulations (G.N.A.
24 of 1956),
(b) Poisons (Amendment) Regulations (G.N.A. 28 of 1956). (e) Poisons List (Amendment) Regulations (G.N.A. 29 of
1956).
(d) Dangerous Drugs (Amendment of Schedule) Order
(G.N.A. 32 of 1956).
(e) Dangerous Drugs (Amendment of Schedule) (No. 2)
Order (G.N.A. 74 of 1956).
Births and Deaths Registration (Amendment of Sched- ule) Regulations (G.N.A. 85 of 1956).
(g) Penicillin (and other Substances) (Amendment) (No. 2)
Regulations. (G.N.A. 86 of 1956).
(h) Quarantine and Prevention of Disease (Scale of Charges) (Amendment) Regulations (G.N.A. 87 of 1956).
(0) Castle Peak Hospital Declaration (G.N.A. & of 1957). Births and Deaths Registration (Amendment of First Schedule) Regulations (G.N.A. 18 of 1957).
(7)
(k) Dangerous Drugs (Amendment of Schedule) Order
(G.N.A. 19 of 1957).
() Nurses Registration (Amendment) Regulations (G.N.A.
20 of 1957).
The following legislation was in process of revision during the year:
Ordinances;
(a) Medical Registration Ordinance, Cap. 161. (b) Mental Hospitals Ordinance, Cap. 136.
IL THE HEALTH OF THE COLONY
General Comments.
9. In 1956, as in the previous three years, the Colony remained completely free from any case of the six internationally quarantinable diseases, namely, cholera, plague, smallpox, epi- demic typhus, yellow fever and relapsing fever, nor were there any noteworthy outbreaks of any other notifiable communicable diseases. The incidence of notifiable diseases in general decreas- ed as did also the mortality, from 18,142 cases and 3,095 deaths
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