and for supervising and directing the work of the health inspectors employed in his area. Each area is divided into health districts in charge of each of which is a health inspector. Other health inspectors are employed in special duties connected with the control of hawkers, anti-epidemic measures, scavenging, etc. Altogether there are forty-three health districts in the urban district of which twenty-five are on the Island and eighteen in Kowloon and New Kowloon.
The New Territories are divided into five Health Districts of which three are situated on the Mainland and two on islands.
A Health Officer is in overall control and responsible to the Director of Medical Services for health and sanitation matters in the New Territories and for directing the work of the Health Inspectors and other staffs engaged in these activities.
A Health Inspector has charge of each Health District and is responsible for scavenging, food inspection, main- tenance of latrines and markets, house-to-house inspection and anti-epidemic measures. In addition, he is in direct control of staffs engaged in the scavenging and cleansing of his District.
General Health
The general health of the populace during the year was satisfactory and compares very favourable with previous years. Reference to the statistics at the end of this section of the report will show that there was an increase in the births and deaths for the year as against those for the previous year but this is undoubtedly accounted for by the increase of the population of the Colony.
Maternity Service
The high standard of the maternity service throughout the Colony continues to be maintained and the approximate total number of beds in both Government and private hospitals for maternity cases was 400. The private maternity homes, of which there were 102, provide another 333 beds, making a grand total of 733 beds. Only midwives who are registered with the Midwives Board are permitted to practise and their number had increased during the year from 740 to 803. The Supervisor of Midwives who is also Secretary of the Midwives Board makes periodical inspections of all private maternity homes which must be registered with the Board. The maternal mortality figure of 2.12 is higher than that for the previous year.
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