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swimming pools quickly. Mr. NORTON points out that it cannot always be used and he says here in the case of Kennedy Town the terrain is such that we are unlikely to be able to use it, but at Lai Chi Kok Bay and Cheung Sha Wan and Kwun Tong there should be no difficulty because they are all level sites.
MR. SALES: --Thank you, Sir. So it is not a fact that the Urban Amenities Select Committee does not want standard swimming pools.
(9) MR. H. CHEONG-LEEN asked the following question:—
(a) Will the Chairman please state whether inspection of licensed food premises has recently been intensified in order to eliminate the incidence of cholera?
(b) Are Urban Services Health Inspectors and other staff verbally or otherwise encouraging members of the public with whom they come in contact in the course of their normal duties to receive cholera inoculations?
THE ACTING DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF MEDICAL AND HEALTH SERVICES replied as follows : ---
In reply to the first part of the question, licensed food premises continue to be inspected at regular and frequent intervals and surprise and formal visits are paid by health officers and other senior officers. Since the beginning of the warm season special attention has been paid to premises selling restricted foods, and intensified action has been taken to check that all food handlers, including those working in premises not requiring to be licensed, have been inoculated against cholera.
In reply to the second part of the question, members of the Health Inspectorate have been encouraging members of the public with whom they come into contact during the course of their duties to receive inoculation against cholera, both orally and by the distribution of handbills.
(10) MR. H. CHEONG-LEEN asked the following question:
Will the Commissioner for Resettlement please state what Resettlement Department staff are doing or can do to encourage residents in resettlement estates and other areas under the control of the Department to be inoculated against cholera?
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THE COMMISSIONER FOR RESETTLEMENT replied as follows:-
When the Medical Department proposes to conduct an inoculation campaign against cholera or any other disease it has become standard practice for advance notice to be given to the Resettlement Department, which, in turn, informs the officers in charge of estates and areas who see to it that notices are posted throughout estates. These notices specify the place, date and time where the inoculation teams will be found and invite residents to come forward for inoculation.
2.
3.
As far as the anti-cholera campaigns of recent years are concerned, it has been usual for estates staff to use loud-hailers to draw the attention of residents to the importance of inoculation. On their daily tours of inspection, block Area Officers are required to encourage residents on the same lines as the posters and loud-hailers. Finally, estate officers are asked to get in touch with supervisors or headmasters of schools in estates, with a view to their passing on the message to school-children. Alternatively, arrangements are made for inoculation teams to visit schools in estates.
I may say that despite all these efforts the response this year appears to have been very poor.
(11) MRS. E. ELLIOTT asked the following question:-
(a) Appeals to the Resettlement Department often requiring detailed inquiries are usually investigated within about 10 days. More urgent appeals for compassionate resettlement or for fixed pitches requiring social welfare investigations, usually require 3 months or more.
Is there any reason why the latter should be so slow, especially as the cases are sometimes very urgent?
(b) Apart from the allocation of a very few shops, fixed pitches, and stalls in resettlement areas, what other ways are provided for the rehabilitation of squatters dispossessed of land, live-stock, small shops of less than 50 square feet, and other businesses not qualifying for resettlement shops or factories?
(c) Are any steps being taken to assist dispossessed persons (as mentioned in (b)) to find suitable employment?
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