PUBLIC HEALTH
163
Grantham Hospital of 540 beds was originally in- tended to be self-supporting. Government has, how- ever, recently assumed responsibility for 264 of these beds, to which patients are admitted from the Govern- ment Tuberculosis Service.
(iv) There are a few private non-charitable hospitals, mainly of the nursing home type. While catering mainly for the well-to-do, some of them do include a number of 'charity' beds.
(v) There are also a number of smaller institutions, such as the Sandy Bay Convalescent Home for Children, a modern institution catering for orthopaedic cases, which do not belong to any of these groups.
Dispensaries. The Government maintains a large number of out-patient clinics varying from large institutions housing many types of specialities to small single-doctor dispensaries or even (in the New Territories) some dispensaries staffed by nurses and visited once or twice a week by a doctor. Again, there are special clinics for tuberculosis, for maternal and child health, for dentistry, for eyes, for leprosy, etc. In such circumstances figures for the number of individual institutions mean little as there is no means of distinguish- ing between the large and the small, but, for what they are worth, the numbers of separate institutions are:
Hong Kong Island
Kowloon
New Territories
14
14
12
No less than six of these were opened during the current year, and several others are at present either being built or are approved and in course of planning. Among the latter is the new Sai Ying Pun Polyclinic, a very large institution which will house a variety of clinics, both general and specialized, as well as a completely new Pathological Institute. The funds for the construction of this polyclinic. are being provided by a generous gift from the Hong Kong Jockey Club, to whose munificence the department is also
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