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discharged patients in the community, the Hospital Authority has strengthened its community outreach teams that are providing community nursing services, community geriatric assessment, community psychiatric nursing services, and other community allied health services. Care-givers trained on the job in homes are permitted also to render community health services on a collaborative basis. The HA spent $600 million on community health services in 2006-2007, during which community nurses made 814 700 visits to the homes of elderly people as well as 790 200 appointments to counsel them and psychiatric patients.
Over 80 per cent of people receiving community nursing care are old people. Medical support for the elderly, discharged from public hospitals, has improved greatly in recent years. Medical officers now make weekly visits to these old people at their homes to assess their state of health and medical needs under the supervision of community geriatric assessment teams. Some 210 such visits were made in 2007. Volunteer groups have also been set up to help old people who have been discharged from hospitals. A telephone nursing consultation service has also been set up to provide home instructions and advice on disease management. Another improvement was the stationing of more community nurses at care centres and non-governmental organisations to provide on-site care for people in the district.
With regard to rehabilitation and palliative services, the hospital clusters under the Hospital Authority will continue to establish more ambulatory care centres to take on discharged patients for short-term rehabilitation and to start an integrated palliative day care centre to provide a full spectrum of physical, rehabilitative, psychological and spiritual services to the patients and families in need.
Dental Health
There are eight School Dental Clinics run by the School Dental Service Division of the Department of Health to provide preventive dental services which include annual dental check-ups and basic dental care to about 387 000 primary students each year, or about 94 per cent of the total number of primary school children in Hong Kong. In addition to the 11 government dental clinics that provide emergency dental services to the general public, the department also offers specialist oral healthcare services in seven public hospitals to inpatients and others with special oral health needs. The department also monitors the level of fluoridation in water supplied to the public to reduce dental decay among people living in Hong Kong.
Mental Health
Information on public mental health services is in Chapter 10.
Other Special Services
The Department of Health runs a range of specialist clinics and centres for the public. They include 20 methadone clinics, 19 tuberculosis and chest clinics, seven social hygiene clinics, four dermatology clinics, two integrated treatment centres, four clinical genetic clinics, six child assessment centres, and two travel health centres. More than 7.2 million visits to these clinics were recorded in 2007.