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Following is a question by the Hon Fred Li and a reply by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong, in the Legislative Council today (December 4):

Question:

Under the Registration of Persons Ordinance, persons who have been granted permission to stay in Hong Kong for 180 days or more, such as foreign domestic helpers and imported workers, are required to apply for the Hong Kong Identity Card ("HKIC"). Besides, all holders of HKIC, their spouses as well as their children under the age of 11 are eligible for public health services at heavily subsidised rates. Regarding the provision of public health services to those HKIC holders who are subject to conditions of stay, will the Government inform this Council of:

(a) the current total number of such persons, together with a breakdown by the type of entry visas granted to them;

(b) the number of attendances for various public health services last year by such persons, broken down by the type of entry visas, and the total public expenditure thus incurred; and

(c) the rationale for its decision to allow such persons to receive public health services at heavily subsidised rates, when it formulated the charging policy for public health services?

Reply:

Madam President,

(a) As at November 2, 2002, the Immigration Department has issued 1 077 771 Hong Kong Identity Cards (HKID Cards) to persons subject to conditions of stay, with 262 929 issued to foreign domestic helpers, and 6 407 issued to workers imported under the Supplementary Labour Scheme. The Immigration Department does not have further breakdown for the remainder. As some of these HKID Card holders might not have surrendered their HKID Cards when they departed Hong Kong for their homeland or settlement in other places, the aforementioned figure on the number of HKID Cards issued also includes those persons who had left Hong Kong but did not surrender their HKID Cards upon departure.

(b) As all holders of HKID Card are eligible for subsidised public health care services, the Hospital Authority (HA) and the Department of Health (DH) does not differentiate patients into Hong Kong Permanent Identity Card holders or HKID Card Holders who are non-permanent residents in their delivery of services. Neither do HA and DH require patients who are not Hong Kong Permanent Identity Card holders to disclose the type of entry visas they hold. As such, we do not have attendance statistics broken down by type of entry visas for patients who are HKID Card holders with non-permanent resident status.

(c) When the Government regularised the charges on persons not eligible for subsidised public health care services in 1987 in response to concerns about how best to target public subsidies in the provision of public health care services to the community, we decided that persons who are not in possession of a valid HKID card and could not prove a close family link (i.e. spouse or children) with a person who possesses a valid HKID Card should not be eligible for subsidised public medical services. In other words, HKID Card holders, irrespective of resident status, are eligible for subsidised public medical services. The decision was based on the premises that Hong Kong's public hospital and clinic facilities are provided for Hong Kong residents and that these facilities should not be diverted to benefit visitors or non-residents at the expense of local residents. Such a policy was made having due regard to the relative contribution of non-permanent residents to the socio-economic well-being of Hong Kong.

End/Wednesday, December 4, 2002

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