Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ18: Demand for public medical services
Following is a question by the Hon Chan Hak-kan and a written reply by the
Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today
(December 3):
Question:
It has been reported that under the impact of global financial tsunami, quite a
number of people who used to go to private medical institutions for treatment
have turned to public medical institutions due to deteriorating financial
situation, which will aggravate the imbalance in demand between the public and
private medical services. In this connection, will the Government inform this
Council whether:
(a) it knows the overall monthly occupancy rates of beds in public hospitals
since September last year, and whether the occupancy rates of beds for September
and October this year have risen when compared to those of the corresponding
period last year;
(b) it knows the overall occupancy rate of beds in public hospitals forecast for
next year; and
(c) it has any plan to allocate additional resources to cope with the shift in
demand for services from the private medical sector to the public medical
institutions; if so, of the details of the plan and the relevant amount of
additional funds; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
President,
(a) The overall monthly occupancy rates of beds in public hospitals under the
Hospital Authority (HA) since September last year are set out in the Annex. Data
shows that the occupancy rates of beds for September and October this year have
not risen significantly when compared to those of the corresponding period in
the last year.
(b) With a growing and ageing population, HA envisages that the demand of
healthcare services at public hospitals will continue to rise next year. In the
coming year, HA will further strengthen the ambulatory and community healthcare
services so to enable more patients to receive day-patient service. Therefore it
is estimated that the overall occupancy rates of beds in the next year will be
similar to that of this year.
(c) At present, only less than 10% of the in-patient services in Hong Kong (in
terms of the number of bed days) are provided by the private healthcare sector.
Therefore, our public healthcare services will not be seriously affected if some
of the private patients change to use public healthcare services. The Government
has pledged to increase the Government's recurrent expenditure on healthcare
from the current 15% to 17% in 2011-12. Meanwhile, the Government is working out
the funding arrangement for HA for next year. In the coming year, we will make
use of the increased government funding for healthcare to strengthen existing
services and to start implementing various service reforms. These include
enhancing primary care, promoting public-private partnership in healthcare,
enhancing support for the management of chronic diseases and strengthening
community mental health services, etc. The implementation of these measures
could help to enhance the overall service of the public healthcare system in
Hong Kong and to cope with the increasing service needs of the public.
Ends/Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Issued at HKT 12:40
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