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The answer to the third part of the question is that work will start shortly at Ma Tau Kok Slaughterhouse on a 16,000 square feet extension to the live animal depot, on an additional live pig admission point, an additional pig-stunning point, an additional pig-carcase scalding and preparation room, and on a general redecoration of the slaughter halls. I would like to state that we are not complacent about conditions at Ma Tau Kok and that we are constantly trying to devise ways of improving them.
Turning now to the fourth part of the question, all the blood lying on the ground is discarded, except for some clotted blood which is removed for use as fertilizer, but, I should make clear, never for human consumption. I am advised that there is no risk to health in the use of this clotted blood as fertilizer.
That leaves the blood which is collected in containers direct from the carcases at the time they are bled. Most of this is sold for industrial purposes or as fertilizer and involves no health risk. A small proportion, averaging some 3 to 4 piculs each day, is sold for human consumption, mostly in the form of blood congee. So far as I am aware no case of food poisoning has ever been traced back to blood obtained from our slaughterhouses. Sample analyses have been made recently; these were all free from food poisoning organisms and confirm the view that such blood, when properly handled and properly cooked, involves no health risk. However, I am arranging for sample analyses to continue and I shall at once consult the Offensive Trades and Slaughterhouses Select Committee should the results at any time indicate the existence of a health risk.
MRS. ELLIOTT: Mr. Chairman, with regard to the first paragraph of your reply, may I mention that I would not like to go into details here as to what I saw in 14 hours at the Ma Tau Kok Slaughterhouse, but I would like to say that the conditions which I saw were filthy and dangerous, and I would therefore like to ask if the Offensive Trades and Slaughterhouses Select Committee would like to go along there at 8 o'clock in the morning and see for themselves?
MR. MARDEN: As its Chairman, I have been along at 8 o'clock or 9 o'clock in the morning and have seen the conditions, but it is a fact that we are pressing ahead as far as possible to get the new Abattoirs going and have done so for the last 5 years.
MRS. ELLIOTT: Mr. Chairman, I should have mentioned that I am not blaming the officers on duty. I think it is the overcrowding and not the officers who are responsible. May I also mention that
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clotted blood is being sold for human consumption. I wonder if the Offensive Trades and Slaughterhouses Select Committee has examined the channels in the slaughterhouse to see if the blood of diseased and healthy animals is not running in the same channel before it is used for human consumption. Mr. Chairman, I was told by the officers on duty that this is so. Perhaps you could make some more enquiries and inform the Select Committee?
MR. BERNACCHI: Mr. Chairman, in view of the supplementaries that have been asked and answered, do I take it that the Ma Tau Kok Slaughterhouse will be replaced by the new Kowloon Abattoir?
MR. MARDEN: That is correct.
(9) MRS. E. ELLIOTT asked the following question:-
(a) What steps have been and are being taken to relieve overcrowding in Resettlement Estates, especially in the older estates?
(b) What is the present minimum space permitted to old residents before decantation is granted?
THE COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT replied as follows:-
The answer to the first part of the question is that measures to relieve overcrowding began in January 1962. By the end of last calendar year, 4,443 families totalling 29,782 persons had moved from overcrowded rooms. During 1964 1,812 families comprising 12,743 persons moved to larger accommodation, of whom all but a hundred families (804 people) came from the four older estates, namely Shek Kip Mei, Tai Hang Tung, Li Cheng Uk and Hung Hom.
The relief of overcrowding is a detailed and sometimes protracted task owing to the need to take tenants' individual wishes and circumstances into account. Many families, for example, are unwilling to move to another estate. In an endeavour to speed up the procedure, a special unit has recently been set up to handle all aspects of the work, which has hitherto been dealt with by officers in charge of individual estates.
The answer to the second part of the question is that, for the time being, relief of overcrowding should take effect when room densities fall below 16 square feet per adult person (two children under ten years of age to count as one adult).
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