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Wednesday, October 31, 1973
The hospitals will together provide 3,900 beds. Capital outlay
will be about 316 million, and recurrent costs $105 million a year -
at present prices.
The total number of new beds is, however, in the region of 8,000,
which, added to those already in the pipeline in both government and
assisted hospitals, will bring the figure to 27,500, or a ratio of 5.5
per 1,000 of the population.
The Committee divides hospital beds into two categories, acute
and non-acute, and the report says more non-acute, or chronic beds, are
required, not only for general cases, but also for psychiatric and
geriatric cases the latter in view of an ageing population.
Provision of "day beds"
There is a provision for what the Committee describes as "day
beds" to accommodate mainly geriatric, psychiatric and chronic cases
requiring minimum medical and nursing care. These beds, to be provided
唱え
in new clinics, will be used for convalescent cases or will serve as
"half-way houses" for patients not requiring hospitalisation, but who are
unfit to be left at home all the time.
Four clinics will be under construction at Ngau Tau Kok, Lam Tin,
Lei Mul: Shue and Ma Kwai Chung, with facilities designed to meet the
expected number of attendances.
Future polyclinics will incorporate such
special services as chest and psychiatric clinics, public health laboratories,
physiotherapy and occupational therapy departments.
The regionalisation scheme is based on four regional hospitals, the
Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth, the Princess Margaret in Lai Chi Kok,
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and the Kwong Wah, of the Tung Wah group.
/Regionalisation