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Following is an oral reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, to a question by the Hon Leung Yiu-chung on Occupational Deafness Compensation Scheme in the Legislative Council today (November 11):
Question:
The retained surpluses of the Occupational Deafness Compensation Board amounted to as much as $396 million and $368 million respectively in the past two financial years. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) given that for an applicant to be eligible for compensation of occupational deafness, he should be suffering from sensorineural hearing loss of at least 40 decibels in each ear, whether it will relax the requirement to one ear;
(b) for those workers who had received compensation in previous years of amounts less than those calculated in accordance with the present provisions, whether it will make retrospective payments to them to make up the differences; and
(c) whether it will consider raising the maximum amount of subsidy for hearing aids to allow recipients to purchase digital hearing aids, which are of higher quality but more expensive; if it will, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) According to the Occupational Deafness (Compensation) Ordinance ("ODCO"), the Occupational Deafness Compensation Board ("ODCB") is responsible for providing compensation and other benefits, including the reimbursement of expenses for hearing assistive devices, to persons who have been exposed to noise in their working environment and have suffered noise-induced deafness. The ODCB also arranges a series of educational and publicity activities to enhance the awareness and alertness of employers and employees towards occupational deafness, and renders rehabilitation services to persons with occupational deafness.
In the light of views expressed by persons with occupational deafness and different quarters of the community, the Labour Department has conducted a review of the scope of protection of the ODCO and come up with an improvement proposal to extend the ODCO to cover persons who suffer from monaural hearing loss due to exposure to noise at work.
(b) In the past, the Government reviewed and improved the scope of protection of the Occupational Deafness Compensation (ODC) Scheme on several occasions. Like other improvements to employees' rights and benefits, the revised compensation levels did not have any retrospective effect. We will adhere to this well-tried practice.
(c) In accordance with the ODCO, the ODCB will reimburse the expenses relating to hearing assistive devices incurred by persons with occupational deafness. The maximum amount of expenses to be reimbursed to an applicant shall not exceed $18,000 in aggregate, while the amount of expenses to be reimbursed for the first time in respect of an application in relation to the acquisition and fitting of a hearing assistive device shall not exceed $9,000. To ensure that a hearing assistive device meets the need of the applicant and the amount involved is reasonable, all applications for reimbursement will be scrutinised by the Occupational Deafness Medical Committee ("Medical Committee") which comprises medical doctors and audiologists. Of the applications handled in recent years, the hearing assistive devices approved by the Medical Committee were usually of the digital type. In the light of the operational experience of the ODC Scheme, the Labour Department has conducted a review of the ceiling of reimbursement of expenses in relation to hearing assistive devices and proposed to raise the maximum amount of reimbursable expenses per applicant to $36,000. We shall consult the ODCB on the improvement proposal by the end of this year and the Labour Advisory Board thereafter.
Ends/Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Issued at HKT 15:00
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