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The following is the speech by the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Henry Tang, at the opening ceremony of Hospital Authority Convention 2011 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre this morning (June 7):
Minister Chen (Zhu), Mr Wu, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
It is my great pleasure to join the Hospital Authority Convention.
The success of our healthcare services requires co-operation and partnership between different parties and institutions, cutting across different sectors and boundaries. I congratulate the Hong Kong Hospital Authority on adopting the theme "Collaborative Healthcare" for this year's convention.
We are committed to promoting and protecting the health of our citizens. This is a cornerstone of our vibrant and successful city. The Government works in close partnership with the Hospital Authority to deliver affordable and accessible services to our community. With the concerted efforts of all involved, we have developed world class healthcare services, enabling us to enjoy high life expectancy and very low infant mortality.
We have worked tirelessly over the years to promote public health. We shall continue to develop and enhance our healthcare system through investment in hardware and software. Over the years, new hospitals have been built, while some existing hospitals were redeveloped and expanded to increase the capacity of our hardware to treat more patients.
Our facilities have also been modernised to ensure safe and high quality services. To increase the overall capacity of our healthcare system, we shall seek to promote and facilitate the development of private hospital services. We have reserved four sites for private hospital development. We will also develop Centres of Excellence for certain specialty areas. These Centres will facilitate training and research as well as the provision of highly specialised services through multipartite collaboration and partnership.
We treasure the high-level professionalism and ethical standards of our medical profession. To cope with the long-term development of our healthcare services, we will increase the training opportunities for local healthcare professionals. At the same time, we will attract more medical talents from outside Hong Kong to promote the exchange of expertise, research and professional training.
The Hospital Authority will continue to perform a vital role of providing training for our young healthcare graduates and medical specialists.
In response to the challenges posed by medical advancement, rising medical costs and our increasing and ageing population, we have embarked on healthcare reform and are making steady progress.
We have rolled out measures to strengthen primary care in order to provide comprehensive, continuous and co-ordinated services to patients and their families at the community level. We have also piloted projects to provide patients suffering from chronic diseases with integrated care through patient empowerment and multidisciplinary efforts. This is in collaboration with private doctors and non-governmental bodies.
At the same time, we have embarked on the plan to develop a territory-wide patient-oriented electronic health record system. This will provide an infrastructure to enable the sharing of patient records between the public and private sectors for increased efficiency and better healthcare.
To address the long-term financial sustainability of our healthcare system, we have consulted the public on our proposal for setting up a voluntary and government-regulated Health Protection Scheme. This scheme will enhance price transparency and competition in private health insurance and healthcare sectors to better protect consumers. It will also enable the public sector to focus on target service areas and care for low-income and underprivileged groups. We will continue to consult all relevant stakeholders and seek the widest possible consensus in the community in taking forward various reform initiatives.
While forging ahead with healthcare reform, we have continued to inject additional resources to improve our existing services. The Government has committed to increasing healthcare funding from 15% to 17% of the recurrent expenditure by 2012.
The Hospital Authority, as the major provider of public healthcare service in Hong Kong, will continue to provide the safety net for the needy. We continue to count on the Hospital Authority to provide quality services for our community and to support the implementation of various healthcare reform initiatives.
This annual convention provides the excellent opportunity for all involved in the healthcare sector to share their insights and develop the network for collaboration. Such exchanges and sharing are important to help us face the increasing challenges in public healthcare.
Let's continue to join hands to work for the better health of our future generations and for better protection of all people against all kinds of health hazards.
Thank you.
Ends/Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Issued at HKT 11:43
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