HEALTH
six child assessment centres and other clinic services. About 14 million visits to clinics were recorded in 2002.
Apart from the public service facilities, members of the community may seek medical treatment from the private sector, which includes medical practitioners working in private practices, housing estate clinics and 184 clinics registered under the Medical Clinics Ordinance.
Dental Services
The Dental Service of the Department of Health aims at promoting oral health in the community through promotive and preventive oral health services.
Oral health education and promotion activities were organised throughout the year to enhance the oral health awareness of the community. These activities included outreaching programmes delivered through an 'Oral Health Education Bus' and target-specific programmes delivered through maternal and child health centres, kindergartens and pre-school centres to more than 180 000 pre-schoolers. Readily available information is also provided to the public through the Oral Health Education home page 'Tooth Club' and a 24-hour interactive Oral Health Education telephone hotline.
Preventive services are delivered through the School Dental Care Service which provides annual dental examination and basic dental care to about 436 100 children annually. A 24-hour interactive voice response system is available to provide voice and fax information about the School Dental Care Service and oral health. In addition, the domestic water supply is fluoridated to reduce dental decay.
Specialist oral health services are provided to hospital patients and those with special oral health needs. An emergency dental service is provided to the general public at 11 designated dental clinics.
Health Care for the Elderly
The provision of medical services for elderly patients is a priority area. Geriatric services are provided in all acute and extended care hospitals. Community geriatric assessment teams and psychogeriatric teams provide outreach specialist support to elderly persons living in subvented and private residential care homes as well as to their carers. During the year, 395 034 and 37 404 outreach services attendances were served by the community geriatric assessment teams and psychogeriatric teams, respectively. Public hospitals also provide 567 geriatric day places for elderly patients. The Department of Health provides Elderly Health Services through 18 elderly health centres and 18 visiting health teams to enhance primary health care for the elderly, improve their self-care ability, encourage healthy living and strengthen family support so as to minimise illness and disability. Elderly health centres provide integrated health service including health assessment, physical check up, counselling, curative treatment, and health education to people aged 65 and above. Visiting health teams reach into the community and residential care settings to conduct health promotion activities for the elderly and to provide training to carers to enhance their health knowledge and skills in caring for the elderly.
Services for the Mentally Ill and Mentally Handicapped
At year-end, psychiatric hospitals provided 3 063 beds while public psychiatric units of general hospitals provided 1845 beds. The number of psychiatric day hospital
167
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