X1000306-1960-61_Part01 — Page 14

ILL WORK OF THE HEALTH DIVISION

HYGIENE AND SANITATION

62. The enactment of the Public Health and Urban Services Ordin- ance, 1960, was one of the major health advances of the past few years, for it revised, consolidated and co-ordinated a mass of disconnected legislation which had become unsuitable for the conditions prevailing in present-day Hong Kong. As a consequence certain administrative changes have been made, designed to centralize functions in connexion with the environmental health services in the urban areas and in the very rapidly growing townships in the New Territories-

Urban Arear

63. Responsibility for environmental sanitation in Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and New Kowloon continues to rest with the Urban Council. The Deputy Director of Medical and Health Services now serves as Vice-Chairman of the Urban Council and is the co-ordinating link between the two Departments for the control of communicable disease through improved environmental sanitation, food hygiene and vector control. Medical and Health Officers are seconded to the Urban Services Department from the Medical and Health Department and work under the direction of an Assistant Director of Medical and Health Services who is posted to the Urban Services Department as Assistant Director, Hygiene. He is responsible for the guidance of the Health Inspectorate in particular, and for advice to the Urban Services Department as a whole, in the day-to-day management of health problems.

64. Medical and Health Officers in the urban areas, in addition to their duties connected with the maintenance of satisfactory standards of environmental sanitation and food hygiene, are responsible for local co-ordination of all epidemiological measures to control the transmis- sion of infectious diseases. Exceptions are tuberculosis, venereal disease, leprosy and malaria which are the concern of specialized branches of the Medical and Health Department. Through the media of the routine house inspections and the regular visits to licensed food premises carried out by the Health Inspectorate, a great amount of health educa- tion is possible in connexion with immunization against diphtheria and with the control of intestinal infections. With the assistance of fully trained Health Visitors. the Health Officers maintain investigations

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into the sources of known cases of diphtheria, tetanus neonatorum, poliomyelitis, typhoid and certain other intestinal diseases.

65. These activities are closely co-ordinated with the activities of teams of inoculators from the Epidemiological Section of the Medical and Health Department which work under the immediate direction of area Health Officers and offer prophylactic immunization against small- pox, diphtheria and enteric fever. Such measures are described in detail elsewhere in this report.

Rural Areas

66. The Public Health and Urban Services Ordinance provided for the gradual transfer from the District Commissioner, New Territories to the Director of Urban Services of the various statutory powers and functions controlling environmental sanitation and food hygiene in the New Territories. By the end of the year the Director of Urban Services had assumed responsibility for all cleansing, amenity and allied services in the more developed townships of the area, while the District Com- missioner remained the licensing authority for all hawkers and premises where food is handled. The Principal Medical Officer of Health, New Territories, continues to advise the respective authorities on all health matters affecting the area and, in addition, co-ordinates all curative and personal health services provided by the Medical and Health Depart- ment in the New Territories.

67. The responsibility for the extension of environmental health services to rural areas remains with the Medical and Health Depart- ment; the problem has been considered in detail with the aid of an Inter-Departmental Committee consisting of representatives of Depart- ments interested in the improvement of village economy. The muin emphasis is on health education stemming from the curative centres and designed to stimulate self-help through village schemes of environmental sanitation. Plans have been drawn up for a two-year pilot scheme. The principles behind the schemes have already been applied wherever possible by such means as insistence on the construction of aqua-privies in place of insanitary latrines. This type of latrine is becoming increas- ingly accepted as a sanitary installation which also provides a useful source of fertilizer for the traditional intensive cultivation of crops.

68. The problem of malaria in the New Territories was surveyed in detail during the year and is described later in this report.

69. Other questions which have given rise to environmental health problems during the year have been the increasing demand for cheap

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