Social_Welfare_Annual_Report_1964-1965 — Page 32

and the Children's Convalescent Home at Sandy Bay has a hundred beds for children in need of post-operative care. Vocational training centres are run in collaboration with the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilita- tion at Wong Tai Sin and Kwun Tong. Employment was found by the Department for thirty-six crippled persons, thirteen ex-lepers and eight tuberculosis ex-patients, mainly in factories.

MENTALLY HANDICAPPED

57. Slow but sure progress is being made in carrying through recom- mendations made by Dr L. T. HILLIARD in his 1960 Report on the Problem of Mental Deficiency in Hong Kong. Over twelve hundred mentally sub-normal persons have been registered by the Department, an increase of one-third over last year and to be compared with about two hundred and eighty only four years ago; one reason for this very large increase is probably that word has begun to reach poorer families with mentally retarded members that some limited services are at last available for them. The day centres for forty mentally retarded children each at Tsan Yuk and at Tung Tau Resettlement Estate operate to capacity. The Aberdeen residential centre mentioned in paragraph 52 has a specially designed block for a maximum of sixty mentally defective children and is also full to capacity. The British Commonwealth Save the Children Fund opened a recreation centre for mentally retarded children between the ages of 4 and 8 years on 22 July with a capacity of fifty, and another private organization, the Hong Kong Association for Mentally Handi- capped Children and Young Persons has recently entered this field; this was inaugurated on 10 February with the aims of fostering mutual support among parents of such children and encouraging the provision of appropriate special education for them.

THE AGED

58. Chinese tradition has through the centuries attached great im- portance 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 encourage any weakening in this strong sense of respect for, and obligation towards, the aged. But with increased expectancy of life, quite apart from other considerations, the number of old people who are without relatives in Hong Kong, or whose families lack the resources to provide for them, is certain to increase; and there has never been

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