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The policy of the Hong Kong Government and the voluntary agencies in the territory has not been "inten- tional neglect", but, rather, intentional care and support. Hong Kong's five million people live in the most densely populated place in the world. The boat refugees are certainly no exception in their overcrowded conditions but they are looked after medically and otherwise. They arrive, especially the children, in weak physical condition, with very low resistance, and some, despite all the efforts of our doctors and nurses, die. Far from this being the result of "neglect", more than 4,500 refugees have been admitted to hospital since the influx started earlier this year.
The remarkable fact is that the death rate among refugees is no.higher than in the community as a whole.
There is no denying the fact that the medical facilities of Hong Kong are at full stretch. Rong Kong not only has to care for some 65,000 Vietnamese refugees; it has also had to absorb more than 200.000 immigrants who have arrived from China in the cast 19 months. There is no country in the world that could core adequately with a comparable surge of demand for medical and other social services.
None of us is satisfied with conditions in our refugee camps, but we are doing our best. The bitter truth is that the human suffering about which your correspondent is properly concerned would have been lessened it refugees in Hong Kong had been given their fair share of resettlement places in third countries.
KS/DL/jt.
Yours faithfully,
Ly
Karl Stumpf (Rev.)
Director, Hong Kong Christian Service
Dorothy Lee (Miss) Executive Director
Caritas Refugee Co-ordinating Office,
Hong Kong
J