Subsidised body checks, cancer screening and flu jabs for all Hongkongers under think tank Bauhinia Foundation Research Centre’s HK$7.8 billion proposal
- Proposal released ahead of opening of city’s first district health centre in Kwai Tsing in two weeks
- More than half of population went without a family doctor and over 60 per cent did not have regular health check-up in 2014/15, official data shows
Free or subsidised body checks, cancer screening and vaccination services that would cost the government about HK$7.8 billion (US$1 billion) a year should be provided at Hong Kong’s new community health centres, a think tank proposed on Tuesday.
The proposal, one of four main recommendations from the Bauhinia Foundation Research Centre after a year-long study, was released two weeks before the city’s first district health centre was expected to open officially in Kwai Tsing.
The research centre, formed in 2006 by close allies of then Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, also suggested that a publicly funded independent authority to oversee primary health care services be set up in the long run.
“Public health is public wealth,” said Dr Donald Li Kwok-tung, director of the research centre and a family medicine specialist in private practice.
“It’s important for citizens to realise they should be responsible for their own health. It’s more important for the government to take the lead and upgrade primary health care services.”
Li said the development of district-based primary health care in Hong Kong had been “way too slow” over the past three decades while the public sector was constantly stretched.
Official data showed that in the 2014/15 year more than half of the city’s population was without a family doctor and over 60 per cent did not have regular health check-ups.
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Li and his research team recommended that the new centres – starting with the one in Kwai Tsing – be turned into one-stop primary health care service providers by integrating fragmented check-ups into a personalised plan for users.
The plan, according to the Bauhinia proposal, would cover check on “three hypers” – hypertension, hyperlipidemia and hyperglycaemia – screening for colorectal cancer and cervical cancer, and the provision of one influenza vaccination.
The package should be free for eligible people aged above 45 and subsidised for the rest, the proposal suggested. Using official data from last year, Li and his team estimated the subsidy would benefit 7.13 million people every year and cost HK$7.82 billion annually.
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“Through the district health centres, public awareness of disease prevention can be enhanced, and a security net of primary health care can be strengthened, which will be helpful to reduce people’s reliance on services from specialists and public hospitals,” Li said.
To sustain the supply of family medicine practitioners and enhance consistency in patients’ records, the research centre recommended the government provide more incentives for doctors and nurses to receive training in family medicine, and to encourage wider adoption of the Electronic Health Record Sharing System.
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“A comprehensive and coordinated primary health care system will enhance overall public health, reduce hospital readmission and rectify the situation where accident and emergency service is regarded as the first point of contact in seeking medical consultation,” Lam said in the policy address.
Run by charity Kwai Tsing Safe Community and Health City Association under a HK$280 million contract from the Food and Health Bureau, the health centre is required to establish five branches in the district within the first year of operation.
The grouping will serve as a pilot scheme for similar centres to be set up across the city’s 18 districts.
A Food and Health Bureau spokeswoman said district health centres would focus on handling common chronic diseases like diabetes mellitus, and hypertension, as well as major health risk factors such as diet, exercise, smoking, and alcohol consumption.
“How the service scope of DHCs should be expanded will be subject to further review under the guidance of the steering committee,” the spokeswoman said.
Meanwhile, citizens who need to be screened for cervical cancer, colorectal cancer, or receive vaccinations would be referred to programmes under the Department of Health.
