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The Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, said today (March 12) that recurrent provision of $4.01 billion had been earmarked for elderly services in 2010-11, representing an increase of 5.6% over the revised estimate of $3.8 billion in 2009-10.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation's Lee Quo Wei Day Rehabilitation and Care Centre, Mr Cheung noted that the allocation accounted for 10.1% of the estimated recurrent expenditure on social welfare, the largest among the various welfare services of a non-social security nature.
Mr Cheung said that a three-year pilot scheme would be launched early next year to provide tailor-made and strengthened home care services with stronger rehabilitation and nursing care elements for elders on the waiting list for nursing home places.
"The District-based Scheme on Carer Training currently covering all District Elderly Community Centres throughout the territory will also be extended to Neighbourhood Elderly Centres in 2010-11 with a funding of $4 million.
"More than 900 elderly carers have already been trained under the District-based Scheme while another 1,500 will graduate this month. A fresh round of training will commence next month and some 4,500 elderly carers will be trained in a year," he added.
On rehabilitation services, the estimated recurrent provision of some $3.52 billion allocated in 2010-11 accounts for an increase of some 8.2% over the revised estimate of $3.26 billion in 2009-10.
Mr Cheung said, "Apart from providing 939 additional residential care home places for persons with disabilities in the next two years, a pilot Bought Place Scheme will also be implemented in the latter half of this year to further increase the supply of these places.
"We will also launch a three-year pilot scheme on home-based nursing care and rehabilitation training for persons with severe disabilities with an allocation of $163 million from the Lotteries Fund. We will start first with Kwun Tong and Tuen Mun, where there are more persons with severe disabilities on the waitlist. It is expected that some 540 of them will benefit from the scheme."
To tackle the challenge of ageing of mentally handicapped persons in residential care homes, the Government will allocate recurrent funding of some $40 million to provide additional health care staff for Hostels for Severely Mentally Handicapped Persons and Hostels for Moderately Mentally Handicapped Persons with a view to strengthening physiotherapy and nursing care for ageing users and helping them maintain physical health and basic self-care abilities, Mr Cheung said.
Ends/Friday, March 12, 2010
Issued at HKT 15:41
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