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planned. This pressure is so great as to make it clear that available facilities are less than adequate and it will be necessary, in due course, for additional operating theatres to be provided.

180. In other ways, too, accommodation is inadequate and, steps have already been taken to meet this difficulty in two respects. A new wing has been planned and will be constructed during the next financial year in which will be accommodated a casualty department, more adequate than the present one, and, in addition, more satisfactory accommodation will be provided for the house officers. The addition of this wing will lead to greater efficiency and to the lessening of the pressure on existing accommodation in the main building.

181. As it bad become necessary to increase the output of the nurses training school as a first step in the planning of the new hospital in Kowloon to which reference has already been made, it was necessary to provide additional accommodation for nursing staff. Thus, towards the end of the period under review work was commenced on the erection of a new multi-storied building which will provide accommodation for 45 nursing sisters. When this is completed space will be freed in the existing Nurses' Home which will permit of a larger intake of trainee nurses and also of the establishment of a more adequate preliminary nurses training school,

182. Towards the end of the previous year a new building was completed at the hospital to accommodate the Blood Bank and a Central Supply Service. Throughout the year under review the Blood Bank functioned most satisfactorily and the bringing into operation of the Central Supply Service in May 1958 has proved a great boom and increased the efficiency of the hospital to a not inconsiderable extent.

183. As has already been stated the institution was, generally speaking, a hospital for acute cases and throughout the year there was no lessening of the pressure on its beda, in fact, there was a further increase in the number of in-patients treated, an increase which was greater than could be accounted

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for by the increase by 7 of the beds available. However, although the bed turnover was as rapid as one could expect there was, particularly on the surgical side, a lengthy waiting list for admission.

184. General out-patient treatment is not provided at the hospital and there is no out-patient department on the pre- mises. Out-patients are normally referred to the hospital, mainly from Sai Ying Pun Out-patient Department, but also from other dispensaries and clinics on the Island.

Kowloon Hospital.

185. This pavilion type hospital with 233 beds is situated on The a fine open site in the centre of the Kowloon Peninsula. inadequacy of the number of beds available will be obvious when it is mentioned that the population which it serves is considerably more than one million. As in the previous year there was again constant overcrowding and long waiting lists for admission.

180. The medical staff was 20 and, in addition, there were 11 house officers. A nurses training school was also maintained at this hospital.

187. There was no perceptible slackening of the work in the hospital although there was a slight decline in the numbers, not only of in-patients, but also of out-patients dealt with. In- patients numbered 8,104 as compared with the previous year's figure of 8,505. The average length of stay in hospital per case was approximately 10 days.

188. Total out-patient attendances were 606,192 as compared with 640,701 in 1952. This decrease was, to a large extent, accounted for by the use, for half of the year, of a penicillin preparation which enabled a single daily injection to be administered instead of the former twice daily injections.

189. The out-patient department continued to be conducted daily in two shifts extending from 9 am, to midnight. Never- theless overcrowding was as great as ever, long queues were in- variable and often medical officers had to work two to a consult- ing room.

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