48. The omnibus and out-of-date Public Health and Buildings Ordinance will be replaced by a number of ordinances each dealing with its own side of the public health complex. The Sanitary Board will be replaced by an Urban Council of which the Director of Medical and Sanitary Services will be vice-chairman and adviser on all matters of public health including sanitation. It will be the duty of the D.M.S.S. to superintend the enforcement and observance of all Ordinances relating to the Public Health and of the by-laws and regulations made thereunder. For this purpose the Sanitary Inspectors will be grouped under the Health Officers who will be under the general direction of the D.M.S.S.
49. The slump in trade with the consequent reduction of revenue continued to retard progress in expansion. The erection of a new mental hospital and a new infectious diseases hospital had to be postponed and the model health centre intended as a field health station for the practical instruction of undergraduates could not be built.
50. It was found impossible to include in the estimates provisions for a Senior Health Officer, a Dental Surgeon and an Ophthalmologist.
51. However, in spite of the severe financial handicap, substantial advances were made in a number of directions. The following are the most noteworthy.
52. The Queen Mary Hospital:-The foundation stone of the Queen Mary Hospital—formerly known as the New Government Civil Hospital—was laid by His Excellency the Governor on the 10th of May. By the end of the year the carcass of the hospital proper and that of the quarters for the nursing staff were almost completed and satisfactory progress had been made with regard to the flats for medical officers and other members of the staff.
When finished this hospital will furnish accommodation for five hundred patients. Situated on the south side of the island five hundred feet above the sea and below the fog line, it occupies one of the finest sites on the island.
53. The Violet Peel Health Centre:-The Eastern District Health Centre, named after Lady Peel, the Violet Peel Health Centre, was opened on the 13th of May when Mr. Tang Shiu Kin, on behalf of the Chinese gentlemen who paid for its erection, handed over the keys to His Excellency the Governor for use as a Government institution to be staffed and run by the Medical Department. A two-storied building, it contains on the ground floor an infant welfare centre, a school medical centre, a dispensary and a general clinic. Attached is a venereal diseases clinic.