Press Releases
SFH on healthcare reform
Following is a transcript of the remarks by the Secretary for Food and
Health, Dr York Chow, at a stand-up media session after attending a radio
programme today (October 9) (English portion):
Reporter: �K
Secretary for Food and Health: The insurance scheme will be monitored by the
Government. What we have proposed is to set up a monitoring mechanism which
will be in charge of monitoring the whole implementation of this particular
insurance product and scheme. At the same time, we need to do any mediation
or arbitration in case of complaint.
Reporter: (About coverage)
Secretary for Food and Health: I think the existing example can cover a
majority of cancer patients that we have collected throughout the private
sector in the last year. These are not just figures throw out. They are
actual figures of the fees and charges that we received. Of course, over the
years there will be more new drugs and new technology. Depends on the type
of trend, these figures can be adjusted.
Reporter: I have questions about manpower. How can you ensure and have
confidence that there will be enough professionals provide services?
Secretary for Food and Health: The total number of doctors and nurses are
already adjusted with the planning and various preparations that we had. We
foresee that the number might not be a big problem. The other thing that we
are addressing is the specialists in different specialties. This is also
relating to the disease trend and treatment trend of the various diseases. I
can foresee that the increase of radiologists, the increase of obstetricians
in the past few years, also of ophthalmologists and so on are more demanding
than other specialties. As Dr Fan has also said, there are some specialties
which manpower is quite saturated that some of the promotion cannot be even
exercised within the Hospital Authority. So we need to do a balance of what
type and how many trainee we are requiring in different specialties and
adjust it year by year.
(Please also refer to the
Chinese portion of the transcript)
Ends/Saturday, October 9, 2010
Issued at HKT 13:20
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