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Following is a question by the Hon Cheung Hok-ming and a reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (May 28):
Question:
It has been reported that the Hospital Authority (HA) is planning to set up basic health and community health centres in all 18 districts in Hong Kong to provide one-stop medical and health care services. HA will first set up such centres at Tin Shui Wai and Fanling as trial points. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council whether it knows:
(a) the details of the above centres at the Tin Shui Wai and Fanling, including their location, scale, services to be provided, population that they can serve, expected time for official commencement of operation, and the number of consultation slots they can provide each day;
(b) for how long the above centres will serve as trial points, and the criteria for assessing the effectiveness of the centres so as to finalise the timetable for setting up such centres in all 18 districts in Hong Kong; and
(c) apart from the above two trial points, whether HA will consider setting up additional ones in other new towns (e.g. Tung Chung) where medical facilities are lacking?
Reply:
Madam President,
At present, the Administration has neither any plan nor policy to set up "basic and community health centres" in all 18 districts in Hong Kong. The establishment of better service network in the community is the Administration's policy on developing primary health care. Therefore, the Hospital Authority (HA) is currently exploring the idea of introducing various continuous healthcare services into the public primary health care. The Administration and HA are still working out the details of this service model. It is expected that this service model can help strengthen primary health care services and reduce the needs for specialist out-patient services and in-patient services.
My reply to the various parts of the question is as follows:
(a) To cater for the increasing population's need for public general out-patient (GOP) services in Tin Shui Wai, the Administration has planned to build a general out-patient clinic (GOPC) in Tin Shui Wai North Area 109 with various continuous healthcare services (including GOP services, family medicine services, and some consultative sessions of specialist and allied health services) to be introduced into this project on a pilot basis to cater for the healthcare needs of local residents. The Administration now plans to submit the proposal of constructing the GOPC and the related medical facilities in Tin Shui Wai Area 109 to the Public Works Subcommittee and Finance Committee of the Legislative Council in June this year. If funding application is approved, the Administration plans to start construction in mid-2009 for completion by end-2011.
The Administration has also planned to strengthen the public primary healthcare services in Shek Wu Hui, Sheung Shui while HA also has a preliminary plan to introduce various continuous healthcare services into this project on a pilot basis. The Administration and HA are still working out the details of this pilot project.
(b) Since the Administration and HA are still working out the details on the piloted introduction of various continuous healthcare services into the public primary health care, we have not set an implementation time frame for these pilot projects at the present stage.
It is HA's preliminary plan that the effectiveness of the piloted introduction of various continuous healthcare services into the public primary health care will be assessed in two aspects. The first one is effectiveness of the services, i.e. assessing whether the service model of having GOP services supplemented with family medicine and some consultative sessions of specialist and allied health services can provide the public with more appropriate services, and reduce the needs for specialist out-patient services and in-patients services. The second one is patients' views, i.e. assessing the level of satisfaction of the patients towards the services.
(c) The Administration will continue to study how to provide the most appropriate public primary healthcare services in different districts to cater for their different needs.
Ends/Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Issued at HKT 12:31
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