XN000022-1973-10-31 — Page 5

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Wednesday, October 31, 1973

Regionalisation means that patients are referred from general

clinics, first to specialist clinics or polyclinics, and then, depending

on the nature of the illness, to a district or the regional hospital.

The difference between district and regional lies mainly in the specialist

service available, hence the flow of patients from one to the other can

also be bi-directional.

In calculating the future requirements of doctors in government

service to staff hospitals, clinics, polyclinics and administrative offices

planned for the next decade, the Committee believes more than 1,300

will be required, or 100 new doctors a year between 1983 and 1992.

The Committee says since it cannot be expected that the Government

will be able to recruit these Cantonese-speaking doctors from abroad, "a

local source of supply" able to produce them by 1982 is needed.

Training of Nurses

Concerning nurses, the Committee believes that the gap between

requirements and supply will also increase substantially in the years to

come, and for this reason, it recommends that a third general nurses

training school be built, with a minimum capacity of an annual intake of

150 to supplement existing government training schools at the Queen Mary

and the Queen Elizabeth hospitals.

As a first step towards giving dental care to school children,

the Committee urges the construction of a dental nurses' school and a

school dental clinic. Proposals for both have already been prepared by the

Medical and Health Department.

The Committee