ENG-1982 — Page 129

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School Health

HEALTH

The School Medical Service is operated by an independent School Medical Service Board. Participation is voluntary and, for a token fee of $5 a year, a participant can receive free medical attention from a general medical practitioner of the school's choice. The government contributes $50 a year for each pupil enrolled and also bears the administrative cost of operating the scheme. More than 200 general medical practitioners have enlisted in the scheme and more than 250 000 school children from 852 schools have been registered. The School Health Service, a government responsibility, deals with the environmental health and sanitation of school premises and the control of communicable diseases. School health officers, health visitors and health inspectors make frequent inspections of schools, and advise on matters concerning the health of the children and organise immunisation campaigns.

Mental Health

The Mental Health Service, in conjunction with other academic and voluntary bodies, provides a comprehensive psychiatric service for the mentally ill. Sophisticated treatment facilities are available at the two major psychiatric hospitals - Castle Peak Hospital, with 1927 beds, and Kwai Chung Hospital with 984 beds - and at psychiatric units in many regional and district hospitals. The total number of psychiatric beds available during 1982 was 3 436. In line with the universal trend of operating small psychiatric units within general hospitals, an additional 1 960 beds are planned for future medical projects.

Supplementing the hospital facilities are psychiatric day centres, which provide a wide range of out-patient treatment, assessment, counselling and after-care services on a regional basis. The centres also operate day hospital places and provide other social, occupational and recreational therapy services for the mentally handicapped.

Equal emphasis is placed on the follow-up and after-care of discharged mental patients during their integration back into the community. In April, a psychiatric community nursing service scheme was introduced at Kwai Chung Hospital to help maintain continuity in after-care treatment programmes and provide extended complimentary care to patients discharged from the hospital. Other supporting services include psychiatric community social services, as well as half-way homes, long-stay homes and social clubs organised by the voluntary agencies.

Severely mentally handicapped patients requiring medical treatment are cared for at the Siu Lam Hospital, with 200 beds, and the Caritas medical Centre, with 300 beds. A further 700 beds of this category have been planned for the next decade.

Dental Service

The School Dental Care Service, introduced in 1980, continues to provide regular dental examinations and simple dental treatment for primary school children at two school dental clinics. The response from parents to this aspect of preventive dentistry has been very encouraging with some 75 500 children 41 per cent of Primary 1 and 2 school children participating during the year, compared to 28.9 per cent during the scheme's first year of operation. To enable the scheme to cover all primary school children, six more clinics are planned.

Dental health education programmes, in the form of lectures and exhibitions, were held throughout the year to promote public awareness in combating dental diseases. Fluoridation of the public water supply began in 1961 and the present average fluoride level is 6.3 mg/1.