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Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Acting Secretary for Food and Health, Professor Gabriel Leung, at a media stand-up session after attending a public event today (July 17):
Reporter: (About wrong transfer of embryos)
Acting Secretary for Food and Health: The Council on Human Reproductive Technology is a statutory independent body governed by the relevant ordinance. We respect and note the outcome of the investigation and the decision of the Council. And we believe that due process has been followed, and the Department of Health knows and notes the decision and will continue to facilitate and assist the Council in the enforcement.
Reporter: (About wrong transfer of embryos)
Acting Secretary for Food and Health: I believe that the Ordinance itself has a comprehensive set of guidance and stipulations to reach all operatives relating to human reproductive technology, and therefore, we believe that we should respect the decision of the Council after the detail investigation and deliberations.
Reporter: (About Health Protection Scheme)
Acting Secretary for Food and Health: We believe that the (healthcare reform) second stage public consultation report states clear that two-thirds of the Hong Kong public supports the direction of the volunteer insurance scheme or the Health Protection Scheme, as we called it. And therefore in the next stage we will be looking at three directions to implement this vision. And those are respectively one, we shall be setting up a high level steering committee to look into the human resources in healthcare. And that is not only the total number of doctors, nurses and other allied health professionals, but also the distribution, and also how we could facilitate and enhance the professional development framework. The second direction is that, there shall be a new piece of legislation that will establish a statutory body to oversee the implementation for the Health Protection Scheme. So provisionally we call it the Health Protection Scheme Authority. So that is the second direction. The third direction is we shall be looking at enhancing all of the facilitative soft parameters, as well as making sure that there is sufficient hardware, that is hospital beds, to make sure that the Health Protection Scheme comes into operation smoothly.
Reporter: (About Health Protection Scheme)
Acting Secretary for Food and Health: I think of course we have a general direction and on which we seemed to have consensus in the community. So we shall be working doubling hard to ensure the details and implementations are fit for purpose that would be able to really press forward with implementing the scheme.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Sunday, July 17, 2011
Issued at HKT 18:39
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