Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1963-1964 — Page 27

charitable funds. The Department found work for a hundred and six deaf persons, most of them in textile factories.

46. The number of physically handicapped persons registered is nearly three thousand. The medical rehabilitation centre run by the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation at Kwun Tong aims particularly at restoring victims of industrial accidents to full or partial working capacity as quickly as possible, and over sixty persons were under treat- ment there at the close of the year. The Princess Alexandra Children's Home, operated by the British Red Cross Society, is filled to its capacity of sixty crippled children, and the Children's Convalescent Home at Sandy Bay has a hundred and eight beds for children in need of post- operative care. Two vocational training centres are run in collaboration with the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation at Wong Tai Sin and Kwun Tong. Employment was found for about a hundred and seventy crippled persons, mainly in factories.

47. Progress continues slowly in implementing the recommendations made by Dr. L. T. HILLIARD in his 1960 Report on the Problem of Mental Deficiency in Hong Kong. Over nine hundred mentally sub-normal persons have been registered by the Department, an increase of 45% over last year; the reason for this very large increase is probably that word has begun to reach families with mentally retarded members that some limited services are at last available for them. The day centre for forty mentally retarded children at Tsan Yuk operates to capacity and another such centre was opened in Tung Tau Resettlement Estate in September, with a similar initial capacity. The Aberdeen Centre mentioned in

paragraph 42 has a specially designed block for a maximum of sixty mentally defective children and is almost full to capacity. In November the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club approved a grant of three million dollars for a 200-bed hospital for severe grade mental defectives, to be built for the Medical Department at Siu Lam in the New Territories.

48. Chinese culture has traditionally attached great importance to the care of aged members of the family. Consequently, the care of old people in Hong Kong ought not to be such a large and difficult problem as it is elsewhere. It is important that the changes in values and attitudes brought about by industrialization and urbanization should not have the effect of weakening this strong sense of respect for, and obligation towards, the aged felt generally by Chinese people. But with increased expectancy of life, quite apart from other considerations, the number

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