PUBLIC HEALTH
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and Health Nurse are the key workers in this branch of Pre- ventive Medicine. The most effective results are probably achieved by individual home visits, although group demon- strations, discussions, film strips and similar methods of health propaganda are popular and well attended at clinic sessions.
OPHTHALMIC SERVICE
This Service is especially concerned with the early diagnosis and treatment of those diseases which cause blind- ness. It is estimated that 75% of blindness in Hong Kong is preventable if recognized at an early stage.
The Service is based on two major Ophthalmic Centres in the urban areas-one on the island and one in Kowloon which are equipped with operating theatres, and from which a specialist service of regular Ophthalmic Clinics is operated in outlying dispensaries of the New Territories.
The staff includes four dispensing opticians who make spectacles prescribed for children under the School Health Scheme and for destitute ophthalmic patients.
Apart from the Government service, the Chinese Hospital Groups employ three part-time ophthalmologists who hold out-patient clinics once weekly, with fortnightly operating sessions. The University employs one part-time ophthal- mologist for two weekly sessions. There are some fourteen other doctors in the Colony practising ophthalmology, mainly as refractionists in private practice.
DENTAL SERVICE
The Government operates a General Dental Service and a School Dental Service; the former being responsible for the treatment of Government Officers and their dependants, impoverished persons under medical treatment in Govern- ment Hospitals, prisoners and certain other categories of the poorer members of the population. The School Dental
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