ENG-1969 — Page 168

HEALTH

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1,525 beds, with all necessary ancillary and specialist services. The Kowloon Hospital is used mainly as a subsidiary to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for patients requiring convalescent care and rehabilitation. Construction work is continuing at Kowloon Hospital on an additional block of 600 beds, which is expected to be completed by middle of 1970.

On Hong Kong Island Government maintains another large general hospital, the Queen Mary Hospital, which performs the same functions for the island as the Queen Elizabeth Hospital does for Kowloon, and is also the teaching hospital for the Medical Faculty of the University of Hong Kong. The hospital's phased programme of alternations, designed ultimately to increase the hospital bed capacity to 1,140 and to provide improved facilities, continued during the year.

Other government hospitals are maintained chiefly for specialised purposes. Apart from the Castle Peak Hospital they include two infectious disease hospitals and a maternity hospital of 241 beds, where the teaching of medical students and training of midwives is carried out. The new Tang Shiu Kin Hospital provides casualty service as well as facilities for maternal and child health, social hygiene and maternity services. Two smaller general hospitals are maintained, one on Cheung Chau Island and the other on Lantau Island. Small hospitals are also established in the Colony's prisons, and maternity beds for normal midwifery are provided in many government clinics and dispensaries.

The Tung Wah Group of Hospitals is a long-established charitable organisation. It operates three general hospitals, the Tung Wah, the Tung Wah Eastern and the Kwong Wah with a total of 2,553 beds, and a convalescent hospital of 503 beds at Sandy Bay. It also provides subsidiary beds for long-term patients at Wong Tai Sin Infirmary. These hospitals, whose recurrent expenditure is met mainly by a large subvention from the Government, provide a valuable contribution to the Colony's medical facilities and are gradually being modernised and expanded.

The Pok Oi Hospital, near Yuen Long in the New Territories, is another long-established charitable organisation operating with the assistance of a government subvention. It has recently been modernised and expanded.