Press Releases
SFH on Tin Shui Wai pilot project and poultry slaughtering plant
Following is the transcript (English portion) of remarks made by the Secretary
for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, at a stand-up media session at the
Legislative Council Building today (November 13):
Reporter: (on pilot project to purchase primary care services from the private
sector in Tin Shui Wai North)
Secretary for Food and Health: I believe this is a proposal given by the
Hospital Authority based on the requirement of chronic illness patients in Tin
Shui Wai area. I do not have the details right now, so I have to leave the
explanation and justification to the Hospital Authority.
Reporter: How soon will this be pushed to?
Secretary for Food and Health: We hope this should be done as early as possible,
but naturally they need to select the group of patients that is required and
also need to have the agreement of the doctors in Tin Shui Wai to serve this
group of patients with those conditions.
Reporter: On the poultry slaughtering and processing plant, now the legislators
have passed a motion asking you to get more discussions with the trade on
compensation. Would this make your work more difficult?
Secretary for Food and Health: I believe they do have a reason for the motion,
but it is important to note that the risk of avian flu and the possibility of
pandemic are always very high. And particularly in Hong Kong, we do not want to
have the same type of disaster we faced during SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome). That is the reason why we need to introduce central slaughtering for
chickens in Hong Kong. There is always diverse opinion on how to introduce it,
but we have discussed this for over two years and taken the interest and safety
of our citizens as well as the hygienic conditions of our wet markets. It is
important that we need to introduce this as soon as possible.
Reporter: Why the rush?
Secretary for Food and Health: Although our chicken farms and imported chickens
are under special bio-security measures, every year we still have more than 10
dead birds that are discovered to carry the virus. We also have in the wet
markets some transmission of low pathogenic avian flu which can be a risk if it
turned out to be a high pathogenic type of virus. This is always a risk in Hong
Kong. Unless Hong Kong can move into a central slaughtering model in looking
after our supply of chickens, otherwise we cannot say that Hong Kong is very,
very safe.
Reporter: You mentioned earlier about 2,400 people will be affected, so in terms
of compensation, what are you looking at?
Secretary for Food and Health: We are looking at the fair compensation for those
people who are affected by this transition and may have to terminate their
present trade. But most of them can actually continue their operation as well as
participate in the new model of the chicken trade industry, particularly the
farming industry, the transport (trade), the wholesalers and retailers, although
the retailers need to change the mode of operation from the present wet market
model to selling chilled or warm meat chickens. This might be a transition and
adaptation is required.
Reporter: Would it run into millions or thousands?
Secretary for Food and Health: We have not calculated it yet, but we will base
on the model we have previously for the voluntary return of the licence plus
some additional factors which are related to the mandatory requirement that they
cannot keep wet market operation in future.
(Please also refer to the
Chinese portion of the transcript)
Ends/Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Issued at HKT 19:57
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