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LCQ8: Policies and services for the elderly
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     Following is a question by the Hon Paul Tse and a written reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, in the Legislative Council today (October 17):

Question:

     Some elderly concern groups have pointed out that many policies and services for the elderly have failed to meet the needs of the elderly. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council whether it will adopt the following improvement measures pursuant to those views:

(a) to waive the means test for the elderly aged 70 or above applying for the Old Age Living Allowance Scheme;

(b) to increase the amount of elderly health care vouchers to $2,000 per year and lower the minimum age limit for elderly recipients to 65;

(c) given that quite a number of elderly people have difficulties in understanding and following the pre-recorded instructions of the telephone booking service in the general out-patient clinics of the Hospital Authority to make a booking and many of them would rather line up in person outside the clinics early in the morning to obtain a consultation quota, to resume the provision of person-to-person telephone booking service in out-patient clinics, to add a person-to-person dialogue option to the existing telephone booking service, or to reinstate the option of queuing up in person for consultation quotas; and

(d) to designate in future areas inside the libraries of newly completed government complexes, including the Library in Lam Tin Complex which will be opened soon, as "elderly corners" and to provide elderly-friendly facilities therein, such as magnifiers, height-adjustable desks and armchairs?

Reply:

President,

     My reply to the Hon Paul Tse's question is as follows:

(a) The Old Age Living Allowance (OALA) aims at alleviating poverty and supplementing the living expenses of Hong Kong (HK) elders aged 65 or above who are in need of financial support. As such, its applicants must meet income and asset requirements.

     On the other hand, HK's population is rapidly ageing. The number of elders aged 65 or above will surge from about 980 000 at present to 2.56 million in 2041, representing 30% of the population at that time. It will put heavy pressure on our welfare and medical systems. HK will also see a drastic increase in the elderly dependency ratio and economic dependency ratio. This will reduce our economic growth potential and pose immense challenge to our fiscal sustainability in future.

     If all people aged 70 or above can receive OALA without having to declare their financial situation and meet income and asset requirements, the additional expenditure on allowance payment in the first year (calculated in full-year terms) is estimated to immediately soar from around $6.2 billion to almost $10 billion. With a fast growing elderly population, the burden of OALA expenditure on public finance is bound to increase drastically over time and at the same time crowd out other Government expenditures (including welfare-related expenditures) required to cope with an ageing population. This underlines the importance of having an objective mechanism of income and asset requirements for OALA to identify those with financial need so that limited Government resources can be focused to help them.

(b) The Government launched the three-year Elderly Health Care Voucher Pilot Scheme (Pilot Scheme) on January 1, 2009 to supplement existing public healthcare services and promote the concept of family doctor. Elders aged 70 or above would be given annually health care vouchers worth $250 to subsidise their use of primary care services in the private sector. On January 1, 2012, the Government extended the Pilot Scheme for three years, with the annual voucher amount increased to $500 per eligible elder.

     In view of the popularity of the Pilot Scheme and calls from different quarters of the community to further increase the voucher amount, the Chief Executive made a pledge in his election manifesto to raise the voucher amount to $1,000 per year. The Administration subsequently announced on July 16, 2012 that the annual voucher amount per eligible elder would increase to $1,000 starting from January 1, 2013.  The Food and Health Bureau will brief the Panel on Health Services of the Legislative Council on details of the proposal and seek funding support from the Finance Committee later this year.

     With regard to the suggestion of lowering the eligibility age to 65, the Government will need to assess the long-term financial implications in terms of affordability and will not consider making any changes at this stage.

(c) To alleviate the crowded conditions of clinics and reduce the risk of cross-infection among patients, the Hospital Authority (HA) launched the General Out-patient Clinic (GOPC) Telephone Appointment Service in 2006 such that patients do not have to visit clinics and queue for consultation quotas in person. There are over 500 telephone lines in the system  providing 24-hour appointment services. Given the huge volume of GOPC services, the automated appointment system enables the search and allocation of available consultation quotas to be conducted within the shortest time possible, thereby improving service efficiency. The system also forms a network whereby consultation quotas of different GOPCs in the same district can be linked and pooled together for use. When a particular clinic has run out of consultation slots, the system will automatically search for available quotas in nearby clinics of the same district, thereby ensuring that consultation slots and clinic resources are fully utilised and that patients do not have to commute between clinics in search of consultation opportunities.  HA anticipates that if additional manually operated services are to be provided on top of the automated system, it would add to the pressure of GOPCs in terms of financial resources and manpower, and affect the efficiency of appointment services.

     In fact, about half of GOPC consultations at present involve chronic disease patients with stable conditions (eg patients with diabetes mellitus or hypertension). Where follow-up consultations are required, such chronic patients will be assigned a timeslot after each consultation and they do not need to make separate appointments by phone.

     HA has also introduced a number of measures to improve the operation of the telephone appointment system over the past few years. These include replacing computerised voice with authentic human voice to make it easier for elders to hear, simplifying data entry procedures to make the system more user-friendly for elders, and extending the response time in each step to allow sufficient time for elders to input data, etc.  Elders in general are used to making appointments via the telephone system and have not encountered major difficulties in the process. Moreover, help desks have been set up in every GOPC to provide suitable assistance to elders and other individuals who encounter difficulties in using the telephone appointment service. HA will continue to keep in view the operation of the telephone appointment system, and will introduce appropriate improvement measures when necessary.

(d) Various ancillary facilities are available in the public libraries under the Leisure and Cultural Services Department to facilitate elders' use of library services. For example, the new district library to be commissioned at the Lam Tin Complex will provide equipment and facilities such as portable magnifying glasses, image magnifiers, height adjustable desks and armchairs for the elderly to read library materials. In addition, an internet workstation with special aiding devices will be installed in that library, so that the elderly and the visually impaired can use the screen magnification software, Cantonese and English voice synthesiser software and "EasyDots" Chinese input method software for internet browsing.

Ends/Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Issued at HKT 15:54

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