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Following is the transcript of the remarks made by the Director of Social Welfare, Mrs Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor this morning (May 2):
DSW : Director of Social Welfare Mrs Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor
Reporter: Where does the money come from?
DSW: Well, let me first of all answer the question related to the deflationary adjustment to CSSA rate, that is a totally different exercise. I don't intend to repeat all the arguments and rationale for doing that, but in light of the continuous deflation that we have witnessed in Hong Kong for over four years now, the Government takes a view that there is room for adjusting the CSSA rate downwards, without compromising the basic and essential standard of living of the CSSA recipients. So the scheme of adjustment has been approved by Legislative Council through approving the Appropriation Bill on the April 9th.
The Department has in fact sent out notification letters to each and every of the CSSA recipient notifying them of the reduction from June 1st for those who are able-bodied. And from the October 1st, for those who are non able-bodied, so that exercise is sort of put underway. The deflationary adjustment , would in fact enable the Department or the government as a whole to have more capacity to meet increasing demand for CSSA. We are seeing various steep increases in CSSA caseload in the last 12 to 24 months and as a result of SARS, I am expecting even steeper increases arising from unemployment and low earnings, so it is very important for us while doing all the things relating to SARS, also to ensure that we could maintain a sustainable safety net for those who need our help now and in the future.
As far as the work concerning SARS, SWD's mission is not only on the financial side because you will see a lot of people being hit by the SARS crisis actually were ˇKI would describe as middle-income families, who generally are very OK, family of three or four with their two parents working, so they are not normally vulnerable people.. But because of the tragedy and the suddenness of the SARS outbreak they have been infected or even have died, there is a need for emotional support, bereavement counseling and also for the community as a whole to show concern to these people. We have been doing various things both from the emotional support side, from giving assistance to patients alike in hospitals as well as the relatives that are outside the hospitals. To do this link to ensure that they know how their parents and their relatives are doing and also to take care of the young children who are left without a carer because both parents are being hospitalized. I have personally visited a couple of these children and I am really, very touched that these children need the full support of the full community and hence we have set up this "We Care Education Fund" to look after the long term needs as they grow up. As at the moment already 24 children coming from 13 families have lost either or both of their parents, this will have to continue and I look to all of you for your support to help us help the children.
Reporter: Is there anybody that wouldn't be eligible?
DSW: As far as the Scheme funded by donations from the Commercial and Industrial sector, there is no means tested things to say. Whoever is affected and wishes to apply for this fund, they can come forward. Except that the level of assistance will be determined according to their needs, needs not assessed in the financial sense, but whether they have left behind young children, whether they have lost a bread winner so to speak. When I mention middle income, I just want to elaborate a bit because usually in my job as SWD, we deal with the vulnerable people, the low income, the grassroots. But the tragic side of this SARS outbreak is we are really seeing families normally don't go in anywhere near the welfare system. But they are people who need our help at the moment. So these people probably may not be very familiar with the services of clinical psychology and things like that. So we have to be more proactive, to reach out to them. So we are now try to get this from the Department of Health and asking our medical social workers every day to check with the Hospital Authority the disease. So that in the first instance we can reach out to them and tell them that we are there, we are here to help people.
Reporter: ..... a central application to make it easy for people to apply?
DSW: No. There is no intention to centralize these funds because many funds are set up with their own specific purposes. For example, some funds raised are targeted towards the Hospital Authority, giving them more supplies and protecting the frontline health staff. So there is really no need to be that rigid to bring together all the money and then we become a big bureaucracy and not knowing how to operate. At the moment, as I said, as far as I am involved directly or indirectly, I hope there are three separate mechanisms. One is this "We Care Education Fund for Children of Deceased AP patients". This Fund will run on a rather long term basis as the children will grow up. The second fund initiated by the commercial and industrial sector in which I am invited to be the agent to help the processing and the vetting and the payment side. I believe this would be a shorter term one. But it is far more immediate so I have pledged that the processing time would be no more than five working days, money would be available within days. The third, whether is a fund or an arrangement, is something which being deliberated by the Hong Kong Council of Social Service together with some consultations with the SWD. I hope to steer them towards addressing the needs of other categories of people.
Reporter: how much money have been put to these funds ...and where does the money come from ...?
DSW: As far as these two funds are concerned, there is no government money. At the moment as I have said, the We Care Education Fund, I am confident that by this time now we would have raised over three million dollars. For the fund from the commercial and industrial sector according to Mr James Tien, they have already raised $17 million dollars. But I am sure money will pour in as we start this campaign through your publicity and through these pamphlets and leaflets.
Reporter: ˇKcounseling and psychological supportˇK to familiesˇKhow many staff you are working on this?
DSW : We have 300 medical social workers working in different hospitals. In addition, we have over 40 family service centres throughout the territory. They are all backed up by clinical psychologists. Over 30 clinical psychologists who are doing the back up service. At the moment, clinical psychologist officers are already receiving quite a number of referrals from the various centres to do the bereavement counseling. But I do expect the numbers to grow as you would see the disease figures are growing up and more and more people dying are probably the younger patients. Throughout this process, one difficult part of our work unlike the normal social work intervention is because this is a public health issue. This disease is highly contagious. It is not easy to do a lot face to face or even ask the people to lie on our shoulders, so to speak, so we have to wait for them to go through the confinement period before we can do the more direct personal face-to-face contact, but we will maintain very close contact to the cases we need help. And I do appeal through you that people who are in this sort of distress situation, please come forward to get in touch with our social welfare units. We have very good facility, the Family Crisis Support Centre which can even offer refuge if they want to stay away from home for few days. We have this Family Crisis Support centre which can offer the shelter for a few days where there will be social workers and counseling to be done on site. So I do appeal that whoever find themselves in that sort of distress situation, please do come forward. We all want to share your pain and help you to ease your pain.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion.)
End/Friday, May 2, 2003
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