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Here is an item of interest to swimmers.
The Leisure and Cultural Services Department said today (May 14) that because of an oil spill, the red flag has been hoisted at Anglers’ Beach in Tsuen Wan District. The beach has been closed until further notice. Beach-goers are advised not to swim at the beach. read more
The Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Mr Edward Yau, will depart Hong Kong tomorrow (May 15) to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers Responsible for Trade (MRT) Meeting to be held in Chile, and the Ministerial Council Meeting (MCM) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) Informal Ministerial Gathering in France. He will also visit the United Kingdom (UK) to strengthen bilateral relations between Hong Kong and the UK.
Mr Yau will first attend the APEC MRT Meeting in Viña del Mar, Chile from May 17 to 18 (Viña del Mar time). APEC 2019 is themed “Connecting People, Building the Future”. Mr Yau will join discussion sessions with ministers of other member economies on topics including APEC and the WTO, advancing APEC’s regional economic integration agenda, and strengthening inclusive and sustainable growth in the digital era. On the sidelines of the MRT Meeting, he will sign an Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement between Hong Kong and Mexico, and meet with other participating ministers for exchanges on bilateral trade and economic relations as well as issues of mutual concern.
After attending the APEC meetings, Mr Yau will visit London, the UK from May 20 to 21 (London time). He will meet with senior government officials and parliamentarians to explore further co-operation on bilateral trade and creative industries development. He will deliver a keynote speech at a seminar on Hong Kong creative industries and design, and will speak on Hong Kong’s latest economic and trade situation as well as its role in the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the Belt and Road Initiative at a roundtable discussion at Asia House.
Mr Yau will then attend the MCM of the OECD in Paris, France from May 22 to 23 (Paris time). He will attend a ministerial dinner hosted by the Slovak Republic, the Chair of the 2019 MCM, and join a session on digital trade where participating ministers will discuss the impact of digitalisation on trade. On the margins of the MCM, Mr Yau will attend the WTO Informal Ministerial Gathering to discuss issues relating to WTO reform and achievable outcomes for the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference next year.
Mr Yau will return to Hong Kong on May 24. The Under Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development, Dr Bernard Chan, will be the Acting Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development during Mr Yau’s absence. read more
The following is issued on behalf of the Electoral Affairs Commission:
The Electoral Affairs Commission will hold a public forum on May 16 (Thursday) on the provisional recommendations on the boundaries and names of geographical constituencies for the 2020 Legislative Council General Election.
“Members of the public are welcome to express their views at the public forum,” a Commission spokesman said today (May 14).
The forum will be held from 7pm to 9pm at Lai Chi Kok Community Hall, 863 Lai Chi Kok Road, Sham Shui Po, Kowloon.
The provisional recommendations were released on May 8 for public consultation. The public consultation period will last for 30 days until June 6.
Written representations can be submitted to the Commission’s Secretariat by post at 10/F, Harbour Centre, 25 Harbour Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong, by fax (2511 1682) or email (eacenq@eac.hk) by June 6. Late representations will not be considered.
Maps showing the proposed boundaries and names of geographical constituencies can be viewed on the Commission’s website (www.eac.hk), or inspected at the Home Affairs Enquiry Centres of all district offices, the Registration and Electoral Office, philatelic offices of Hongkong Post, management offices of public housing estates, and at major and district public libraries.
For enquiries, please call 2827 1269. read more
Following is the speech by the Chief Executive, Mrs Carrie Lam, at the Hospital Authority Convention today (May 14):
Vice Minister Wang Hesheng (Vice-minister of the National Health Commission); Professor John Leong (Chairman of the Hospital Authority (HA)); Dr PY Leung (Chief Executive of the HA), doctors, nurses, health professionals, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning. It’s a pleasure to join you today for the opening ceremony of this year’s Hospital Authority (HA) Convention, the 25th edition. While I attended previous HA Convention as Chief Secretary for Administration, this is indeed my first HA Convention as Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Let me first congratulate the Hospital Authority on reaching this milestone.
For those who have heard me speak on the subject of health policy on previous occasions, you may recall my passion and compliment of Hong Kong’s healthcare system. I’m proud to say that our healthcare system has been ranked as the most efficient in the world among the 56 economies covered by Bloomberg Health Care Efficiency Index published last September. It means that the people of Hong Kong can enjoy equitable access to quality healthcare services at affordable prices. Such impressive results cannot be achieved without the dedication and commitment of each and every colleague in the public health system, particularly the Hospital Authority which takes care of the lion’s share of inpatient services, together with the support of the entire healthcare professional community.
However, this valuable system much treasured by the people of Hong Kong is facing some formidable challenges. Along with our aging population and longer lifespan, we are dealing with a rise in chronic, lifestyle-based diseases. And access to health knowledge through the internet raises people’s awareness of what they may look for from our service providers. That has created higher public expectations and surging demand for even better services, straining our healthcare system.
My Government is committed to the sustainable development of our public healthcare system. In 2019-20, our estimated recurrent government expenditure on public healthcare services will increase by nearly 11 per cent to more than HK$80 billion. We are also committed to progressively increasing the Hospital Authority’s recurrent funding under a new arrangement, responding both to population growth and demographic challenges. In the current financial year, the recurrent subvention provided for the Hospital Authority totals nearly HK$70 billion, representing an increase of 8.3 per cent over that of last year.
I just heard John talking about the two bottlenecks in the delivery of healthcare services, which I totally agree. On the hardware side, I should add that the first 10-year hospital development plan, with a budget of nearly HK$200 billion, is in full swing. We are also working with the Hospital Authority on our second 10-year hospital development plan. It will cover another 19 projects, involving around HK$270 billion.
While hardware and funding are important, it is our devoted team of doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, and supporting staff in the Hospital Authority that we treasure most. Since taking office, I have visited several public hospitals. Despite the heavy patient load and overcrowdedness in our hospitals, I was impressed by the staff’s dedication and professionalism. Allow me to take this opportunity to once again express my gratitude, on behalf of the Government and the people of Hong Kong, to Hospital Authority colleagues, especially the front-line staff, for their hard work in coping with the heavy workload. The Government is doing all we can to alleviate their pressure, but I would say that the manpower bottleneck is even more difficult than the hardware bottleneck. In addition to longer-term measures like increasing our medical student intake which would take time to realise its effect, we have pledged to give the Hospital Authority full support and facilitation for improving remuneration and promotion opportunities for its staff so as to attract and retain talent.
We are also trying to bring in reinforcements. Over the past couple of weeks, stakeholders of the medical profession in Hong Kong have been actively working towards a common goal – to attract more non-locally trained specialist doctors to serve in Hong Kong to help address the manpower shortages in the public sector. We welcome the decision of the Medical Council of Hong Kong last week in waiving the assessment for non-locally trained specialist doctors before getting full registration, which is a good start. We will monitor the effectiveness of the measure, while at the same time continue our discussion with stakeholders to explore further options.
Beyond increasing healthcare expenditure and enhancing our healthcare infrastructure, beyond ensuring a sustainable flow of fresh talent, we must recalibrate our long-term direction. In particular, we need to redirect our healthcare focus from treatment in public hospitals to prevention and management within the community itself. This is the reason why we are so keen to promote primary healthcare.
When it comes to primary healthcare, we are focused on reducing hospital re-admissions, rectifying the common practice in which accident and emergency services are considered the first point of contact in medical consultation. We need, instead, to strengthen policy coordination and cross-sector collaboration service provision at the district level. Boosting the health consciousness of the community is essential to making this a reality.
To that end, my Government is introducing a new District Health Centres’ model. The objective is to enhance district-based primary healthcare through medical-social collaboration and public-private partnerships. The first District Health Centre, in our Kwai Tsing District, will begin operation in the third quarter of this year. It will provide a variety of primary healthcare services, but its emphasis will be on prevention. That means targeting health promotion and education, health assessment, chronic disease management and community rehabilitation. The hope is that this district model of health management will reduce the use of hospital services in the long run. Taking into account the experience gained from the first Kwai Tsing Centre, we will progressively, and hopefully quickly, set up centres in all other districts.
Now let me turn to innovation and technology, which is also a focus of this year’s Convention. Indeed, innovation and technology is having an impact on every aspect of our life, healthcare very much included. I believe that Hong Kong has what it takes to do well in innovation and technology, including our world-class universities and strong research and development capabilities. My Government has identified innovation and technology as a major policy priority, and has been doing all we can in promoting its development. Some HK$100 billion has been allocated for various policies and programmes since I became Chief Executive in July 2017. We have identified health technology as the focus of one of our major initiatives in setting up research clusters at the Hong Kong Science Park. That choice is obvious given our two high quality medical schools, centralisation of inpatient service in one single provider – the Hospital Authority, and hence good access to big data as well as accredited centres for clinical trials, etc.
Data availability is one of the aspects I am giving a push within Government through the Steering Committee on Innovation and Technology that I chair. I am pleased to have the Hospital Authority as a partner in the provision of clinical data for healthcare-related research. In December 2018, the Hospital Authority launched its Data Collaboration Lab. It gives researchers a freer hand in exploring the Hospital Authority’s patient data for research ideas and the testing of promising hypotheses. Researchers will also collaborate with the Hospital Authority in projects that improve clinical and healthcare services and promote innovation in healthcare. I am delighted to know that six projects, led by researchers from Hong Kong universities, have been selected in the plan’s first stage, covering a number of diseases and clinical work, including stroke, hepatitis, hip fractures, the development of data-driven algorithms, etc. I am hopeful that these and other projects in the future will bring us fresh insight into healthcare and contribute to Hong Kong’s research and development success.
Genomic medicine is another medical discipline that warrants our attention. Given the huge potential of genomic medicine in screening, diagnosis and precision medicine, my Government has established a steering committee led by Professor Raymond Liang to study strategies for developing genomic medicine. I have also announced the introduction of the Hong Kong Genome Project in my Policy Address last year, under which about HK$1.2 billion would be allocated to perform up to 50 000 whole genome sequencing in six years. An expert working group is now examining the project framework, and we will set up the Hong Kong Genome Institute to coordinate the implementation of the project in partnership with the Hospital Authority, universities, research sectors and other key stakeholders. I am confident that with the Hospital Authority’s full support for the project, patients could benefit from the scientific advancement in genome sequencing.
The Hospital Authority is also working on a Strategic Service Framework for genetic and genomic services. And I’m pleased to say that Professor Sue Hill, NHS England’s Chief Scientific Officer, will be offering her invaluable experience in this development. Professor Hill is the mastermind behind the genome sequencing project in the United Kingdom and genomic medicine services in the NHS. She will address this morning’s plenary session, as well as tomorrow morning’s Symposium on “Genomic Care in the Era of Big Data.”
Professor Hill is one of some 90 prominent speakers taking part in more than 50 sessions over these next two days of discussion, intelligence and insight. They will showcase the latest research excellence, while helping to boost healthcare for patients and the communities they live in. That will no doubt be for the benefits for all of us.
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you all a very rewarding Hospital Authority Convention and, for our visitors, a memorable stay in Hong Kong, where the world connects and excels. And this being the last Hospital Authority Convention convened by Dr PY Leung, who has been working with me since 30 years ago when we were in the health policy area, I wish to thank him on behalf of the Hong Kong SAR Government, and wish him every success in his future endeavours. Thank you very much.
The Chief Executive, Mrs Carrie Lam, will lead a Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government delegation to attend the 21st Plenary of the Hong Kong/Guangdong Co-operation Joint Conference in Guangzhou on May 16. She will then visit three cities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, namely Foshan, Zhaoqing and Jiangmen, and attend the first Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area media summit.
On arrival in Guangzhou, Mrs Lam will attend the Hong Kong/Guangdong Co-operation Joint Conference together with the Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung; the Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs, Mr Patrick Nip; the Secretary for the Environment, Mr Wong Kam-sing; the Secretary for Home Affairs, Mr Lau Kong-wah, and the Secretary for Innovation and Technology, Mr Nicholas W Yang. This being the first Hong Kong/Guangdong Co-operation Joint Conference held after the promulgation of the Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, both sides will deliberate on the implementation of the Outline Development Plan and further collaboration between Guangdong and Hong Kong, with a view to setting out clearly the way forward and goals.
In the afternoon, she and Mr Nip will start the visit to the Greater Bay Area cities, during which she will meet with leaders of the Foshan, Zhaoqing and Jiangmen Municipal Governments, as well as conducting visits to youth innovation and entrepreneurship bases and facilities of various industries including innovation and technology, medical services and culture. She will also learn about the urban planning of the cities and inspect transportation infrastructure during the visit.
Mrs Lam and Mr Nip will attend the opening ceremony of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area media summit in Guangzhou on May 19 and return to Hong Kong the same day.
During Mrs Lam’s absence, the Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, will be Acting Chief Executive until Mr Cheung returns to Hong Kong in the afternoon on May 16, when he will take over the role. read more