approved and equipment is now on order. It is anticipated that routine fluoridation will start in the near future.
387. Three Dental Surgery Assistants were awarded W.H.O Fellow- ships for training as Dental Nurses after the New Zealand pattern. Two Fellowships were awarded for training in Wellington, New Zealand, starting in September 1958 and one was awarded for training in Penang, starting in January 1959. These students are expected to qualify and return to Hong Kong during 1960 and 1961 when they will take up appointments in the School Dental Service, The role of the Dental Nurse is to carry out minor operative work under the supervision of the Dental Officers and so lighten the burden of routine procedures. Dental Nurses also play an important part in the education of children, parents and teachers towards a better understanding and appreciation of the prin- ciples of dental health and preventive dentistry.
Voluntary Dental Services
388. Welfare organizations maintained a number of dental clinics either for their own members or for the poor in their respective districts, The Hong Kong Dental Society continued to staff four free evening clinics each week, three in Kowloon and one in Hong Kong together with a forinightly clinic at the Ruttonjee Sanatorium. The St. John Ambulance Brigade sent a Penetration Squad, which included a dentist, cach Sunday to the more remote areas of the New Territories where free treatment was given to those in need.
Government Dental Scholarship Scheme
389. This scheme was started in 1954 to ensure a supply of qualified dental surgeons for the Colony. Those who qualify as dentists under this scheme are required to work in the Government Dental Service for one or two years after their return. The first scholar to be assisted under this scheme returned in 1957.
390. In January 1959 four dental students went to the Dental School at the University of Adelaide and a further three began their studies at Melbourne in March 1959. At the end of the financial year there were, in all, 32 dental scholars studying overseas, eleven in the University of Malaya, eight in Adelaide and thirteen in Melbourne.
Control of Dental Practice
391. Two Dental Inspectors were employed throughout the year in connexion with the supervision and control of private dental practice. Premises used or proposed to be used by private dental practitioners
were inspected regularly. There were five prosecutions for alleged illegal dental practice and five persons were convicted of this offence.
GOVERNMENT INSTITUTE OF PATHOLOGY
392. The Institute is situated in Victoria on Hong Kong Island and is the headquarters of the clinical and public health laboratory service. At Kowloon Hospital there is a major branch of the Institute and small clinical laboratories are maintained at the Queen Mary, Tsan Yuk, Sai Ying Pun and Lai Chi Kok Hospitals. The service includes routine clinical pathology, public health bacteriology, histopathology, supervi- sion of the Blood Banks and vaccine production. The medical staff also undertake the autopsies at the two public mortuaries in Victoria and Kowloon respectively.
393. The Government Pathologist is assisted by two Pathologists and two Assistant Medical Officers, one Chief Medical Technologist, one Senior Medical Technologist, three Medical Technologists, eighteen Medical Laboratory Technicians and twenty-five Student Medical Laboratory Techoicians.
394. The new Institute of Pathology, which will be a part of the Sai Ying Pun Polyclinic now being built, is expected to be occupied towards the end of 1959. Meantime arrangements have been made with the University Department of Pathology to undertake all the routine clinical pathology in the Queen Mary Hospital as from the 1st of April 1959, thus releasing staff to deal with the ever-increasing routine work carried out at the Institute.
395. Specimens received for examination during the year numbered 438,542-an increase of 38,568 over 1957. The increase was spread over every section of the work but was most noticeable in the culture and sensitivity testing of M. tuberculosis and in histopathology.
396. The training of probationer Laboratory Assistants continued according to a syllabus which follows closely that for the Associateship of the Institute of Medical Laboratory Technology in the United Kingdom.
397. In addition, courses of lectures in Communicable Diseases and Bacteriology continue to be given by the staff of the Institute to Health Visitors, Health Inspectors and Student Nurses. Short courses of training in laboratory techniques were held for laboratory staff from the Government-assisted Hospitals and from the Government Veterinary Laboratory. A number of Male Nurses in the Government service also
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