33. Tung Wah Infectious Diseases Hospital.-Situated in Kennedy Town and adjacent to the Government Infectious Diseases Hospital is the Tung Wah Infectious Diseases Hospital, an institution containing 30 beds where 60 patients could be accommodated at a pinch. The treatment here was left almost entirely to the herbalists.
During the year, there were no cases of Smallpox treated.
TREATMENT OF OPIUM ADDICTS.
34. At the Government Civil Hospital and Tung Wah Eastern Hospital six and twelve beds (respectively) are reserved for the treatment of opium addicts, the Government being responsible for the expenses incurred. 41 cases were treated at the former institution and 404 at the latter, making a total of 445 cases.
Chapter V.
HOUSING.
In recent years some evidence has been shown amongst the artizan class of the Colony of a quickening social consciousness and the resultant desire to avail themselves of improved housing accommodation wherever such is made available. The unskilled labouring classes, however, are still found densely packed in tenement houses deficient in light and air. This class of labour has to find its habitat as close as possible to the scene of its labour, with the result that the western part of the City of Victoria, which houses the native business quarter and closely adjoins the portion of the harbour handling the traffic from the West River and Chinese Coast Ports, is seriously overcrowded.
2. These conditions which were being slowly mitigated by the rebuilding of properties which from time to time were condemned for reasons of structural defects are now being more rapidly appeased by the operation of the Buildings Ordinance, 1935, which came into force on the 1st January, 1936. Overcrowding amongst the labouring class is still however prevalent.
3. The housing of the Colony is all privately owned; and control is maintained by the operation of the Buildings Ordinance, 1935, the provisions of which also mould the character of the housing. Generally the houses are built back to back in rows and are separated by a scavenging lane. These houses vary in height from two to four storeys according to the width of the street on to which they front, whilst the average height per storey is twelve feet, a minimum being controlled by the Ordinance of 1903. The Buildings Ordinance, 1935, permits a
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