HEALTH
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home, and health visitors also go to the homes of newborn babies whose names appear in monthly birth returns. Health education forms an important part of this work and includes practical demonstrations, talks, film shows and individual advice to mothers. Immunization against smallpox, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, poliomyelitis and tuberculosis is offered at all centres.
SCHOOL HEALTH
The School Medical Service is operated by the School Medical Service Board, an independent body incorporated by ordinance. Essentially, the scheme offers a service whereby participating school children receive medical treatment from private medical practi- tioners for the small sum of $7 a year. This per capita fee does not meet the cost of the service, and the government contributes an equal sum as well as the cost of administrative expenses. At the end of the year 58,935 students attending schools were enrolled in the service and 222 private medical practitioners were partici- pating.
The School Health Service, which has been in existence since 1927, continues as a government responsibility and is concerned with the sanitary condition of school premises, the control of communicable diseases and the health education of children, teachers and parents. In August 1966 the work of the School Health Service was taken over by the area health officers who, apart from their normal duties, act as medical officers of schools.
MENTAL HEALTH
The Castle Peak Hospital for psychiatric patients, planned with a bed capacity of 1,002 beds, was required to accommodate an average of some 1,440 patients daily during most of the year. Significant relief to the congestion was provided by the addition of two ward blocks of 120 beds each, giving a total of 1,242 beds. Psychiatric cases from the whole Colony, mostly voluntary patients, are admitted to the hospital. Outpatient treatment is available on Hong Kong Island, in Kowloon and in the New Territories, and day patients are treated in the psychiatric day centre on Hong Kong Island. The newly-opened Yau Ma Tei psychiatric centre, occupying one-quarter of the clinical floors of
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