submitted to Government in March, 1963. Government will continue to provide for all schools the existing services for the prevention and con- trol of communicable discase, including immunization programmes and environmental health services.
16. The pressure on general hospital beds continued unabated, and, in fact, increased. This was barely contained by the use of camp beds in wards, on verandahs and wherever else they could be fitted in. The rapid rate of turnover of patients in the acute wards was also maintained by utilizing subsidiary convalesceat beds wherever they could be found. In meeting this pressure, the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals played a significant complementary role, particularly in Kowloon where, from February 1963 onwards, the Kwong Wah Hospital accepted direct, from the Kowloon Hospital Casualty Department, up to 25 emergencies each day.
17. The Castle Peak Mental Hospital of 1,000 beds, opened in March 1961, was also under heavy pressure. By the end of 1962, it had been necessary by rearrangement of ward accommodation to increase the nominal bed strength to 1.119 beds. Despite this increase, the parole system continued to be extensively used as well as the day out-patient centres on Hong Kong Island and, later, at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Specialist Clinic in Kowloon.
18. The general hospital building programme is going ahead rapidly and some temporary casing of the pressure on acute beds in Kowloon is hoped for in 1964 when the new Kwong Wah Hospital re-development plan for 1,270 beds and the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital have been completed.
19. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital of 1,338 beds is to be formally opened carly in September 1963, and with this in view a Commissioning Unit consisting of the designate Medical Superintendent, Senior Matron and Senior Hospital Secretary was formed in January 1963. The greater part of the equipment for the hospital which had been ordered from outside the Colony had arrived by the beginning of 1963 and it is anti- cipated that all patients will have been moved from the existing Kowloon Hospital to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital by the end of December 1963. Kowloon Hospital will then be renovated and modified, to function as a general rehabilitation centre of 304 beds complementary to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and as a medical and surgical tuberculosis centre of 184 beds.
20. During March 1963 site works started at the Queen Mary Hos- pital preparatory to the extensions necessary to modernize this Govero-
ment Hospital which was first opened in 1938 and which is also the Teaching Hospital for the University Medical School. The extensions will include new operating theatre suites, a new radiology department, ward units for an additional 180 beds and enhanced teaching facilities designed to accommodate an increased intake of medical students.
21. Voluntary agencies are also engaged in general hospital develop. ment projects. The Tung Wah Hospitals Board opened an extension of 180 beds at the Sandy Bay Infirmary on Hong Kong Island in December, 1962, and plans were in hand to build an Infirmary of 210 beds at Wong Tai Sin in Kowloon. In Tsuen Wan, work had started on the 72 bed Seventh Day Adventist Hospital and the Yan Chai Hospital Board was incorporated by statule, preparatory to raising funds to build, initially, an hospital of 100 general beds, also in Tsuen Wan. Proposals submitted by the Protestant Churches to build a general hospital of 600 beds in Kowloon, to be known as the United Protestant Hospital, wore also under consideration by Government.
22. The Government outpatient clinic building programme is also going ahead. In North Point on Hong Kong Island, the Anne Black Health Centre was opened in September 1962 by Lady Black, the wife of His Excellency the Governor. Named after Lady Black as a tribute to her practical concern for the welfare of the people of Hong Kong. half the cost of construction was donated by Dr. TANG Shiu-kin, C.B.E., LLD., and a group of his friends. Government met the other half of the building costs and equipped the clinic which is also being staffed and maintained by Government.
23. The Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club also donated two further clinics, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Specialist Clinic and the Wang Tau Hom Clinic. The former is in the grounds of the Hospital and is designed to provide outpatient consultant and follow-up services main- ained by the clinical Specialist Units in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. The latter is a standard urban type clinic which serves a new and rapidly growing resettlement estate, Both have been equipped by Government and are maintained from public funds.
24. At San Po Kong on the outskirts of the Wong Tai Sin Resettle- ment Estate, the foundation stone of another standard urban clinic was laid by His Excellency the Governor Sir Robert Brown BLACK, G.C.M.G., O.B.E., in February 1963. To be named the Robert Black Health Centre, this clinic has been built as the result of a generous personal donation of half the construction cost by Dr. TANG Shiu-kin,
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