Replies to LegCo questions

LCQ12: Mainland women giving birth in HK

        Following is a question by the Hon Dr Law Chi-kwong and a written reply by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong, in the Legislative Council today (July 7):

 

Question:

 

        Regarding Mainland women giving birth in Hong Kong, will the Government inform this Council:

 

(a)    of the number of Mainland women who were non-entitled persons and gave birth in public hospitals;

 

(b)    among the women mentioned in (a), of the number of those whose spouse is a Hong Kong resident; the highest and average amounts of payment charged on them when they were discharged from hospitals; and how their length of stay in hospital compares to that of the entitled persons; and

 

(c)    of the average length of stay in hospital of the babies delivered by the women mentioned in (a), how this figure compares to that of the babies delivered by entitled persons; the number of babies delivered by the former whose length of stay is shorter and, among them, the number of those who subsequently were hospitalised for treatment; how the health condition of these babies with shorter length of stay compares to that of other babies, since April 2003?

 

Reply:

 

Madam President,

 

(a)    The number of Mainland women who were non-entitled persons and gave birth in public hospitals for the period between April 1, 2003 and March 30, 2004 was 8,727.

 

(b)    Amongst those 8,727 women mentioned in part (a) of this reply, 2,166 of them were the spouse of a holder of a Hong Kong identity card. 

 

        The highest and average amounts of the medical charges of those women when they were discharged from hospitals were $135,300 and $7,985 respectively.  Their average length of stay was 2.5 days, which is comparable to that of entitled persons who gave birth in public hospitals within the same time period at 2.4 days.

 

(c)    The Hospital Authority does not routinely collate information on the precise length of stay of new born babies.  However, for babies born in public hospitals with similar health conditions, there is no appreciable difference between the length of stay of babies born to non-entitled persons mothers and that of babies born to entitled persons.    

 

Ends/Wednesday, July 7, 2004

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