With a view to further facilitating the walk-in emergency dental services for members of the public, the Department of Health (DH) today (May 27) said that starting from June 11, the registration time for the preliminary registration arrangements at its nine dental clinics providing general public sessions will be advanced from midnight on the day of service to 8pm on the day before service, allowing people in the queue to leave at an earlier time after preliminary registration.
The nine relevant dental clinics located in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories (except those on outlying islands) are Kennedy Town Community Complex Dental Clinic, Kowloon City Dental Clinic, Kwun Tong Dental Clinic, Mona Fong Dental Clinic, Tai Po Wong Siu Ching Dental Clinic, Fanling Health Centre Dental Clinic, Tsuen Wan Dental Clinic, Yan Oi Dental Clinic and Yuen Long Government Offices Dental Clinic. From June 11, the nine dental clinics will preliminarily register personal information for people in the queue and verify the originals of their identity documents starting at 8pm on the day before providing general public dental services. Each person can only register once. Staff would cease the preliminary registration when the number of registered persons reached the quota of the general public sessions. Those who have finished preliminary registration can leave the clinic immediately and do not have to continue waiting. They should return to the relevant clinics at the scheduled disc-distributing time in the morning on the service day (in the afternoon on the service day for Mona Fong Dental Clinic) to obtain a disc, register formally in order and receive treatment. The DH has recruited additional staff to maintain order.
For the sake of clarity, the preliminary registration arrangements for the general public sessions on June 11 will start at 8pm on the day before (i.e. June 10). Notices detailing the new arrangements and logistics will be displayed at conspicuous locations of the clinics. The addresses and time of operation of the relevant dental clinics can be viewed at website www.dh.gov.hk/english/tele/tele_chc/tele_chc_dcgps.html.
In addition, the development of software and systems by the DH is in full progress, with an aim to roll out an online disc distribution and registration system for the general public dental services this year. By then, there will be no need for the public to queue in person to obtain a disc. Meanwhile, the system can provide the public with real-time information on available quotas to ensure full utilisation.
Meanwhile, the Government is strenuously planning a series of measures to effectively enhance the local public dental services, including the collaboration with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to strengthen in the next year the emergency dental services targeting the underprivileged groups with financial difficulties through an expansion of service capacity, service points and service scope, thus promoting early identification and timely intervention of dental diseases. The target is to provide additional service capacity that will be at least twice the capacity provided by the current dental general public sessions. The programme details will be announced in due course.
The dental clinics under the DH are mainly responsible for providing dental benefits for civil servants/pensioners and their eligible dependents as required of the Government as terms of employment for civil servants, and therefore civil servants/pensioners and their eligible dependents are the major service targets of these clinics. Currently, dental care services in Hong Kong are mainly provided by the private sector and NGOs. The DH provides general public sessions to offer free emergency dental treatments (including general public sessions to provide treatment of acute dental diseases, prescription for pain relief, treatment of oral abscess and teeth extraction) to the public through designated sessions in 11 government dental clinics of the DH.
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