From December 4, public hospitals will stop providing
non-emergency treatment to people who do not have Hong Kong ID and
who have not paid up their medical dues, the Hospital Authority
(HA) announced yesterday.
Cheung Wai-lun, HA director (cluster services) said the new
measure would be taken to better manage outstanding medical bills
in public hospitals.
Under the measure, registration staff will be alerted by a
computer system to patients with outstanding bills when they return
for services.
If they do not have Hong Kong ID they will not be treated for
non-emergency services and will get treatment for life-threatening
conditions only.
In recent years, the number of non-locals using public medical
services and the amount owed by them have been increasing.
According to HA figures, non-local patients' outstanding fees in
public hospitals have almost doubled from HK$35.6 million in
2005-06 to HK$61.9 million in 2006-07.
Such figure among the locals has decreased from HK$8.2 million
in 2005-06 to HK$7.9 million in 2006-07.
Tim Pang Hung-cheong, community organizer of Society for
Community Organization said if the non-locals had nothing to do
with Hong Kong, then the measure is acceptable.
However, he said that mainland mothers with Hong Kong husbands
would be most affected.
Mainland mothers used to pay the same amount of obstetric
service fees as local mothers and the amount of bad debt is not
big, he added.
However, mainland mothers had to pay much more now, he said.
Since February mainland mothers were asked to pay HK$39,000 for
obstetric service with booking, and those without booking were to
pay HK$48,000.
Some mainland mothers had failed to pay the exorbitant fees, he
said.
"The new HA measure will increase psychological and financial
burdens on these families, many of whom have low income," he
said.
"It is also unfair to the children of Hong Kong people," he
said.
The amount owed by mainland mothers is high because of the
adjusted fees for mainland mothers.
The number of mainland mothers who have not paid medical bills
is not large, he said.
Medical sector legislator Kwok Ka-ki said the measure was
reasonable. He also added that patients' emergency would be decided
by the doctors.
For example, under the new measure doctors would not have to
take care of outpatient services and non-emergent surgery.
He said everyone would be treated equally and he did not think
it is directed against mainland mothers.
If non-local patients had financial difficulty, he suggested HA
social workers to ask for their needs and follow up the case.
(China Daily HK Edition November 22, 2007)