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HEALTH

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 children 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. During recent years the Medical Faculty has expanded to cope with an annual intake of 120 medical students to meet the increasing needs of the Colony for doctors. 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, almost all of the specialist appointments in the Medical and Health Department are now held by locally-recruited staff.

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 ulti- mately 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. Training at government schools and at the Caritas Hospital school is in English, but there are also approved schools at Tung Wah Hospital, the Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital, the Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital and Caritas Hospital where instruction is in Cantonese. Examinations are held by the Hong Kong Nursing Board and there is full reciprocity of registra- tion between the Hong Kong Board and the General Nursing Council of England and Wales. Most female nurses, on completion of general nursing training, take a midwifery course of one year which qualifies them for entry to the examinations held by the Hong Kong Midwives Board. The course is conducted in English at