The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, visited Kwai Tsing District this afternoon (October 30). He was briefed on the support to the elderly and children with special needs in the district, and met with members of the Kwai Tsing District Council (KTDC).
      
     Accompanied by the District Officer (Kwai Tsing), Mr Alan Lo, Mr Cheung met and exchanged views with the parents and teaching staff of the Po Leung Kuk Kwai Fong Kindergarten-cum-Nursery on the implementation of the Pilot Scheme on On-site Pre-school Rehabilitation Services (Pilot Scheme). He was also briefed on the school’s future development plan. The school is a non-profit making kindergarten-cum-nursery committed to providing diversified daytime child care and education services for needy children in the district, including pre-schoolers with mild disabilities. 
      
     Under the Pilot Scheme, multi-disciplinary teams outreach to schools to provide services to children with special needs.  The multidisciplinary teams comprise occupational therapists, physiotherapists, speech therapists, psychologists, social workers and special child care workers.
      
     Mr Cheung said that in view of the positive feedback from parents and kindergartens since the launch of the Pilot Scheme in late 2015, the current-term Government has decided to regularise it from the 2018/19 school year onwards and has earmarked $460 million a year in recurrent expenditure for the programme to double the service places from about 3 000 to 7 000 in two years. The target is to achieve the policy objective of “zero waiting time” for pre-school rehabilitation services in the long term. 
      
     He then visited the Kwai Chung (C&S) Community Health Centre (Light and Love Home) and received a thorough briefing on its services such as outdoor exercise classes, health seminars and self-health checks. In view of Kwai Tsing’s relatively larger elderly population than other districts, KTDC made use of the Kwai Tsing Signature Project Scheme to enhance community healthcare services. The Health Centre is one of the four centres supported by the Scheme.
      
     Thereafter, Mr Cheung visited the Viva - Cho Yiu Centre of the Hong Kong Family Welfare Society. The Centre is a recognised service provider of the Pilot Scheme on Community Care Service Voucher for the Elderly. In addition to touring the Centre's facilities, he was briefed on the implementation of the scheme.
      
     Mr Cheung pointed out that the Government planned to further increase the number of vouchers under the Second Phase of the Pilot Scheme by 1 000 to a total of 6 000 in 2018-19 so that more eligible elderly persons would be able to choose community care services that suited their needs.
      
     He stressed that to enable the elderly to recover and enjoy life in a familiar environment, the Government would provide additional resources to enhance community and home care services with the aim to achieve zero waiting time in the long term.
      
     Before the visit concluded, Mr Cheung met with KTDC members to listen carefully to their views on matters such as policies on elderly services and support for children with special needs.
     

Ends/Monday, October 30, 2017
Issued at HKT 19:07

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