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output of tapestry work was maintained. Government orders for brooms and other domestic, hospital and office equipment continued. A small printing press was acquired during the year and a number of depart- mental printing requirements were undertaken. In addition, a carefully- planned programme of rehabilitation is also carried out for patients attending the Hong Kong Psychiatric Centre. With the gradual change in the policy for admission of drug addicts, the general occupational therapeutic regime in this sphere has been reduced considerably.

131. In the Kowloon Jockey Club Rehabilitation Centre, the patients treated have been mainly orthopaedic cases or amputees, and the emphasis has remained in terms of remedial exercises, pre-vocational evaluation and training and instruction in the routine activities of daily life.

132. A welcome innovation during the year was the preparation, in conjunction with the Social Welfare and Resettlement Departments, of a unit to house twenty-four paraplegics in a resettlement block at Kwun Tong. The unit, which was nearing completion at the end of the year. is designed to provide specific facilities for this type of patient and includes vocational workshops to promote a degree of self-sufficiency.

133. No Annual Exhibition and Sale of Work was held during the year, but surplus finished articles were sold with good effect from the Occupational Therapy Section of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

ORTHOPAEDIC AND PROSTHETIC APPLIANCES

134. The production of appliances rose by 42 per cent during the year to a total of 1,561 as compared with 1,100 in 1963, but output still falls somewhat short of demand.

135. The study of below-knee amputees has been continued and a pre-amputation socket technique has been evolved whereby the socket of the prosthesis is prepared for immediate post-operative fitting, thus reducing considerably the period of hospitalization. A simplified cast- taking device has also been produced which is superior to those used hitherto and enables casts to be taken from the patient prior to ampula- tion. In addition, investigations are in progress, in co-operation with a local manufacturer of footwear, to design suitable shoes for leprosy patients with ulcerated feet,

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MEDICAL EXAMINATION BOARD

136. There was little of note during the year in the work of this section, which continued to perform medical examination of new entrants to Government employment and to the Essential Service Corps. The intensive recruiting campaign staged by the Police Department early in 1965 required some temporary re-arrangement of the appointment system, but it was possible to cope with the numbers coming forward with little derangement of the service provided for other Government departments.

137. Although the numbers of persons classified as unfil on account of tuberculosis continued to fall, the disease remained the primary reason for non-acceptance of applicants on medical grounds, being responsible for thirty out of the forty-nine "unfit' classifications in each thousand examinations.

HOSPITAL MAINTENANCE AND SUPPLY

138. This section, which is responsible for the routine supply and lay administration of medical institutions, experienced considerable staffing difficulties during the year. Not only was difficulty encountered in the recruitment of experienced Hospital Secretaries but there has been an increasing wastage rate amongst male menial staff which was only partially halted by an interim salary award in the later part of the year. 139. Provision of transport services presented certain problems as routine requirements were augmented by the increased need for vehicles during mass immunization campaigns and in meeting the expanded intake of the central departmental laundry. The laundry itself, situated in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, encountered certain teething troubles, but these are being overcome gradually and it is now working on two full shifts per day.

140. Castle Peak Hospital continued to experience, due to its rather isolated position, difficulties in the supplies of electricity and of flushing water. The abnormal number of typhoons caused, as in previous years, intermittent interference with main electric cables; to minimize the potentially dangerous effects of such interruptions in a large mental hospital, work commenced on the installation of an auxiliary generator and emergency circuit.

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