- 41.
To improve and monitor the quality of child-minding services, we are now considering legislative amendments to prohibit unsuitable persons from acting as child-minders, and to empower the Director of Social Welfare to inspect and suspend the operation of child-minding services provided by mutual help groups if it is considered that the operation may expose the children involved to any danger. Another purpose of these amendments will be to encourage the formation of mutual help groups by permitting the maximum size of such groups to increase from 5 to 14 children under 6 years of age. We intend to introduce the proposed legislative amendments into the Legislative Council in the next legislative session.
But we must be wary of over-regulation in this field. In spite of the ambitious expansion programme now in hand to provide additional places in day nurseries and day creches, not all parents in need of such services yet have access to them. It is, therefore, vitally important that we continue to encourage informal child care mutual help groups to provide a flexible form of child care arrangement. The risk to a child left unattended at home is still much greater than the risk the child might face of mistreatment at the hands of a child-minder. The long term goals are, of course, to provide an adequate number of child care places to meet the full demand and progressively to upgrade the skills and monitoring of those providing the child- minding services. In the interim, we cannot move too fast and risk, as a result, making it too difficult for an adequate number of child- minding places to be provided to meet the increasing demand for them. Above all, we shall continue to educate parents about the importance of taking great care in selecting the appropriate type of child care arrangement conducive to the healthy development of their children.
End/Wednesday, May 17, 1995
Number of directorate posts in public hospitals
Following is a question by the Hon Michael Ho Mun-ka and a written reply by the Secretary for Health and Welfare, Mrs Katherine Fok, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Question:
Regarding the increase in the number of directorate posts in various hospitals under the management of the Hospital Authority (HA), will the Government inform this Council of:
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