ENG-1997 — Page 215

HEALTH

Services for the Mentally Ill and Mentally Handicapped

At the end of 1997, 3 775 beds were provided in psychiatric hospitals and 1 227 beds in public psychiatric units of general hospitals. The number of psychiatric day hospital places remained at 575. The redevelopment of Castle Peak Hospital, one of the territory's two main psychiatric hospitals, is under way. An additional 442 psychiatric beds are scheduled to be provided by the year 2000.

Community work and aftercare units of psychiatric hospitals help discharged patients. The community psychiatric nursing service and domiciliary occupational therapy service, in particular, aim to provide continual care and treatment programmes for discharged mental patients in their home settings. This assists patients' social readjustment while educating them and their families on mental health. Three community psychiatric teams and eight psychogeriatric teams have been set up to provide designated care and rehabilitation programmes to psychiatric and psychogeriatric patients. Other complementary rehabilitative services run by government departments and non-government organisations include day-centres, half-way houses, long-stay care homes, vocational training, selective placement and social clubs.

Severely mentally handicapped persons requiring intensive nursing care and rehabilitation services are cared for at Tuen Mun Hospital (200 beds), Caritas Medical Centre (300 beds) and Siu Lam Hospital (300 beds). Two outreach teams have been established to provide services for early intervention.

Community Based Nursing Service

The Hospital Authority's Community Based Nursing Service provides post-discharge rehabilitative nursing care and treatment to the sick, the elderly infirm, the disabled, and the mentally ill through a network of 49 centres. During the year, 35 200 patients were served and 453 400 home visits were made.

Port Health

The Port Health Office enforces measures in the Quarantine and Prevention of Disease Ordinance and the International Health Regulation to prevent the introduction of quarantinable diseases into Hong Kong by air, land and sea. The service regularly exchanges epidemiological information with neighbouring countries and the World Health Organisation. No cases of plague and yellow fever were reported in 1997.

Radiation Health

The Radiation Health Unit is the government's adviser on radiation health matters and the licensing arm of the Radiation Board for the enforcement of the Radiation Ordinance (Cap 303). In 1997 the unit issued 3 300 Irradiating Apparatus Licenses, 600 Radioactive Substance Licenses and 400 permits for transportation of radioactive substances. It monitored the radiation exposure of 7 000 workers and organised 1 000 health surveillance examination for these workers. In addition, the unit provided 3 200 individual radiation monitoring service to emergency response personnel. For these monitoring activities, the unit processed and analysed a total of 90 000 dosimeters. Its inspectors carried out more than 700 on-site radiological safety

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