ENG-1967 — Page 157

HEALTH

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Territories. In 1953, 80 per cent of the blind population of the Colony had become blind before reaching the age of 10. With the application of modern drugs, special attention to the condition of avitaminosis and free treatment to those under 12 years, the position is now comparable with conditions in advanced countries with the onset of blindness occurring after the age of 50 in 80 per cent of

cases.

TRAINING

The degrees of MB, BS, conferred by the University of Hong Kong, have been recognized for registration by the General Medical Council of the United Kingdom since 1911. The completion of the professorial suites at Queen Mary Hospital provides expanded facilities to cope with an annual intake of 120 medical students. Post-graduate clinical training is available in the Colony for higher qualifications awarded by most of the examining bodies in Great Britain, and is supervised by a panel for post-graduate medical education, consisting of university and government staff members. Due mainly to this programme, over three-quarters of the specialist appointments in the Medical and Health Department are now held by locally-recruited staff. In November 1966, a primary examination for the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh was held in Hong Kong, and 14 candidates out of a total of 31 were successful. A primary examination for the Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons was held in June 1967.

Hong Kong has no local facilities for training in dentistry, but a government dental scholarship scheme each year enables a number of students from Hong Kong to study dentistry overseas and ultimately to qualify as dental surgeons.

There are three government hospital schools of nursing. Those at the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary Hospitals are general schools, while the one at the Castle Peak Hospital is a psychiatric nursing school. To make possible an increase in student nurse intake, the School of Nursing at Queen Mary Hospital has heen enlarged and was commissioned in January; facilities are now equal to those at Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Training at government schools is in English, but there are also approved schools at the Tung Wah Hospitals, the Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital,