Press Releases

Transcript of media session by SHWF on medical fees and charges

Following is the transcript (English portion) of a media session by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, after attending a radio programme this morning (April 10):

Reporter: (On medical fees increase)

Dr Chow: I've mentioned many times before that the subsidy level of Hong Kong's medical fees and charges is always on the high side, perhaps the highest in the world. It gives patients a wrong sense of value, particularly in some of the services. It is apparent that a number of patients prefer to have repeated consultations, mainly because it is very cheap. Secondly, they may ask for medications that sometimes they don��t need mainly because the charges are so low. So these are the important problems that we need to face. We want to make sure that the resources given to the public health system are targeted towards the really needy. In that aspect, I think the Hospital Authority had looked at the affordability and also some of appropriateness of care studies within last year. Perhaps that is the reason why chairman Mr Anthony Wu mentioned about the increase of fees and charges recently. But we need to look at the recommendations on the increase in our investment in the health area in the future and where the money will come from and how we can put it out in stages so that people can have a more thorough understanding about it. If you talk to people now that we need to increase investment, of course, most of us, including myself, will not give any more money.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript)






Ends/Monday, April 10, 2006
Issued at HKT 13:57

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