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However,
medical certification by the Medical and Health Department. in view of the heavy pressures on this department, consideration is being given to the feasibility of entrusting responsibility for the certification work to an independent medical board.
No further extensions to community care allowance scheme
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Honourable Members will wish to know that consideration was given to the possibility of extending the community care allowance scheme to include widowed mothers with young children, which was mentioned in the White Paper "Social Welfare in Hong Kong: The Way Ahead". However, the great majority of those consulted in the course of the social welfare review considered that it was not necessary to do so; and that adequate help was available through the public assistance scheme, especially if this were amended (as is proposed in paragraphs 17 and 18 above) to provide for a long term supplement and to enable a widow to retain some part time earnings in addition to her public assistance allowance. A further extension of the scheme to include widows with young children is not therefore proposed.
Limitations of existing schemes
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As this memorandum has shown, so far social security in Hong Kong has fallen into 3 categories - means -tested (the public assistance scheme), non means -tested but needs-related (the community care allowance scheme and the accident compensation schemes) and employment - related (both statutory and voluntary schemes).
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Each category is designed for a specific purpose:
(a) The public assistance scheme is an effective means
of helping families with low income. But, being a family means test, it can only be used to help families with low overall resources. Where there is more than one wage earner (and 50.75% of families, according to the 1976 By-Census have more than one earning member), the public assistance scheme is of limited value even though the families are hard hit by having a wage earner away from work due to sickness. If the public assistance
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