TNAG-0507-FCO40-572-Development-of-medical-and-health-services-in-Hong-Kong-1974 — Page 59

(c) the need to extend provision for in-patient psychiatric treatment; Castle Peak Hospital can only deal with a proportion of cases warranting admission;

(d) a forecast increase in maternity requirements;

(e) an increase in demand for general beds, as public expecta-

tions grow and medical science advances; and

(f) the need to improve the service by reducing overcrowding.

7.7 The need to increase the numbers of beds available can be partly offset by reductions in the need for beds for tuberculosis, leprosy and other infectious diseases. The number of beds proposed in this White Paper would in the light of all these factors enable the needs of the community to be better met and the facilities for certain categories of patient to be improved.

7.8 To meet this requirement of 27,495 beds would mean the addition of 7,380 beds over and above those already identified in paragraph 7.4, or in other words, providing about the same number of additional hospital beds as the 7,596 which are at present available in Government hospitals (including temporary and substandard beds). As the MDAC indicated, the full achieve- ment of this target by 1982 would be likely to exceed the ability of the Government to build finance or staff the institutions that would be necessary. This assessment is entirely accepted by the Government. It has therefore been necessary to consider closely the priorities to be observed in determining new hospital projects.

7.9 In this process it has proved necessary to take account of the need-

(a) to provide additional beds for general specialities and for psychiatric cases, in which the major shortfalls are expected to occur;

(b) to improve provision for other specialties and in particular to add more separate specialist provision for geriatric

cases;

(c) to reflect the distribution of population and the develop-

ment of the new towns;

(d) to concentrate on the establishment of a geographically based system of general hospitals-containing a balance of specialist services at district and regional level;

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(e) to ensure that new hospitals are not unduly large (although in Hong Kong's circumstances large hospitals have to be accepted as it is essential to make the fullest use of the land available); and

(f) to work towards the achievement of a satisfactory dis- tribution (in the context of the regional approach) between acute and non-acute beds.

7.10 Within the broad strategy of current policy, general priority is to be afforded to those projects which will contribute to the satisfactory development of the new towns, and through them to the remainder of the New Territories. The top priority for general hospital provision is therefore accorded to two new major hospitals to serve the new towns of Sha Tin and Tuen Mun.

7.11 The full programme of Government hospital building proposed is then-

(a) the completion of Princess Margaret Hospital and its psychiatric wing-projects already in the Public Works Programme;

(b) Sha Tin Hospital: this will be a regional hospital of 1,200 beds to serve East New Territories. In addition, it should be developed as a teaching hospital to provide the clinical teaching facilities needed for the second medical school which is to be established at the Chinese University of Hong Kong; the hospital will be planned to contain 750 acute general beds, 250 psychiatric beds, 100 geriatric beds and 100 maternity beds;

(c) Tuen Mun Hospital: this will be a district hospital of 1,200 beds to serve West New Territories, designed and planned to support the regional facility at Princess Margaret Hospital. It will be planned to contain 500 acute and 250 non-acute general beds and 450 psychiatric beds (of which 200 will be for the mentally retarded);

(d) Shau Kei Wan Psychiatric Hospital: this will contain 500 beds rather than the 1,000 originally proposed by MDAC. 1,000 beds in a single hospital would produce too large a unit for the facility proposed. (450 of the remaining beds will be provided at the proposed Tuen Mun Hospital and 50 in day beds in selected clinics); and

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