A Health Visitor giving a health talk to group of villagers.
is provided partly by the University clinical departments and partly by Government specialist units. Owing to the increased demand for services, the hospital's nominal capacity of 632 beds was augmented considerably by the use of camp-beds, which averaged approximately 120 each day throughout the year.
92. During the year construction work continued on the 6-storey professorial suite, the 7-storey block containing operating theatres and specialized services, the greatly-expanded radiodiagnostic department, the radiotherapy department and new accommodation for nurses, housemen, doctors and for the Nurses Training School. Plans were also made, on the completion of these extensions, to alter the existing main hospital building so as to provide a total of 1,080 beds by the end of 1967 and to set up an intensive care unit, and an acute psychiatric ward to improve the facilities of the hospital as a teaching and specialized institution. In spite of the magnitude of these developments, careful planning continued to prevent direct interruption of hospital routine although interference and considerable disturbance to both staff and patients was unavoidably caused by noise and vibration.
QUEEN ELIZABETH HOSPITAL
(See tables 49-50)
93. This hospital, the largest hospital of its kind in the Common- wealth, serves a population of approximately 21 million people living in Kowloon and the New Territories as a medical centre for emergency and specialist care.
94. During its second year of operation, attendances at the Casualty Department dropped by 4.3% compared with the previous year. Of these attendances, 45% were due to trauma, the main causes being, in order of frequency, domestic, industrial and assault cases. 24.6% of all the cases seen in Casualty Department required immediate admission to hospital and 6.6% were referred for admission to other hospitals such as Kwong Wah Hospital and Lai Chi Kok Hospital. (Please see paragraph 146 below for details of operation of the Casualty Depart- ment of the Kwong Wah Hospital).
95. The average time spent in the Hospital by each in-patient was 8.7 days. Once tided over the acute episode of the illness, patients are either discharged or transferred to Kowloon or Lai Chi Kok Hospitals for convalescence. Pressure on the Orthopaedic Wards, which built up rapidly in mid-1964, was abated due to additional number of con- valescent beds being available at Kowloon Hospital.
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A Health Visitor at work in a village in the New Territories.
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