health service. At present only a limited quantity of occupational health work is carried out because the staff are overburdened with duties arising from the Workmen's Compensation Ordinance. Yet it is very necessary that more be done to give health education on occupational hygiene in the factories, and to detect health hazards (such as the effects of chemicals, noise, lighting and pollution in the factories) causing the occupational diseases listed in the Second Schedule of the Ordinance.
Industrial and Traffic Accidents
119. Industrial accident cases occupied an average of 270 beds during a sample quarter in 1972. Using the planning occupancy rate of 85 per cent, this is equivalent to 318 beds. A large publicity campaign might, optimistically, reduce the number of cases by 25 per cent. The saving of 80 beds would reduce recurrent costs by about $1.5 million, so the approach is worth considering, particularly as accident rates are increasing rapidly. The number of occupational accidents reported in recent years have been
1968
19,717
1969
24,258
1970
33,609
1971
38,306
1972
47,635
and the estimate for 1973 is 59,000. Publicity by itself, however, might fail, and would require to be supported by vigorous action on the part of the factory inspectorate responsible for accident prevention.
120. Traffic accidents also produce a noticeable requirement for the services of casualty departments and for hospital beds. The Committee considers that the Road Safety Campaign has a valuable part to play in this respect, and would support any request made for additional resources to step up the Campaign.
Medical Rehabilitation of the Physically Disabled
121. With the increase in the number of victims of industrial, traffic and other accidents, it is expected that the need for rehabilitation services for the physically disabled will increase steadily in the future. The first stage of rehabilitation takes place in a medical institution and this should start as soon as the patient's general condition allows. The rehabilitation services take the form of physiotherapy, occupational therapy, prosthetic and orthotic services and medical social service. They are available not only to victims of accidents but to other patients disabled through age or illness, and are given both in hospitals and rehabilitation centres. Additionally there are patients so severely dis-
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abled that after treatment in hospital or centre they are still unable to lead a normal life, but require constant nursing care. The main problem here is a shortage of non-acute beds for long stay patients. A further category of patient is the paraplegic.
122. In the course of keeping under continuous review the develop- ment of medical and health services in Hong Kong, as required by its general terms of reference, the Committee proposes to examine such possible additional requirements for the medical rehabilitation services. of the physically disabled as:
(a) to expand the existing rehabilitation section of the Wan Chai Polyclinic or to establish a new rehabilitation centre to serve the eastern part of the Island;
(b) to develop the rehabilitation services in the Tung Wah Group of hospitals; chronic patients in the Sandy Bay Convalescent Hospital, the Wong Tai Sin Infirmary and the Tung Wah Hospital are also in need of this service;
(c)
to develop a rehabilitation centre in the future Kwun Tong Poly- clinic (paragraph 39) to provide services for the eastern part of Kowloon;
(d) to develop facilities by way of non-acute beds in Kwun Tong to provide hospital care for the severely disabled as well as for other types of chronic patients.
123. As a first step we recommend that a survey of long-term patients occupying non-acute beds be carried out at an early date.
CHAPTER 11
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
Chapter Paragraph
2 9,10
2
14, 15
Recommendations
We recommend that the general Colony-wide standard in respect of hospital bed provision by the end of 1982 be set at 5.5 beds per 1,000 population.
We recommend that the general Colony-wide standard in respect of clinic consulting rooms by the end of 1982 be a total of 305 rooms, sub- divided by specialties as in paragraph 14.
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