HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
28 June 1989 香港立法局 ——————————一九八九年六月二十八日
62
Nor has there ever been a clear consideration of who needs the scheme. Only 48% of eligible school children joins this scheme, some without the slightest idea of the implications. Furthermore there is no data of how many actually utilize it, not to say derive benefits, to make meaningful analysis.
At the end, the needy students suffer from the lack of attention of disinterested practitioners, and the doctors suffer the abuses of the system by repeated and unnecessary visits.
Two other fallacies follow from this scheme. Firstly it extends to school children of up to Secondary III only leaving a gap for the adolescence group from Secondary IV onwards. This adolescence group is an essential group as they face many problems with the bridging over from the child to early adulthood. One fatal cause is sex education and counselling and in this respect proficiency must be brought about either through the Administration or adequate funding to voluntary agencies such as the Family Planning Association to ensure that this aspect is properly covered. Secondly, the participants, that is to say the school children of the School Medical Services Scheme, are in no way barred from attending the very busy and heavily subsidized general out-patient clinics. A situation of double subsidy therefore exists when a child under the School Medical Services Scheme attends a general out-patient clinic.
The recent recommendation by the School Medical Services Board to change the overall charging scales which was approved only yesterday by the Executive Council appears to be more workable. But, Sir, let me sound an immediate note of warning. This recommendation could only be an interim measure, and the Administration must come up with a more defined policy on the care of the school children through upgrading of primary health care services in Hong Kong.
I would like to move on to primary health care for children.
Primary health care
A lot have been said in the past concerning the need for revamping the primary health care services. Whilst the hospital services are being reviewed and hopefully improved through the establishment of the Hospital Authority, primary health care in Hong Kong today remains in hibernation. Hiding behind the laurels of low infant mortality rate and successful control of most epidemics, the primary health care system of today has remained in the doldrums of yesteryears. Recommendations have been made by the Medical Development