TNAG-0784-FCO40-988-Application-of-international-labour-conventions-to-Hong-Kong-1978 — Page 84

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There are nominal charges (inclusive of all treatment) for a visit to a public sector doctor (about 12p) and for hospital care (about 60p a day) which are waived in cases of need. Such charges do not conform to NH3 principles but I got no indication that people were thus deprived of medical care and was most impressed with hospital expansion plans and what I saw of the. facilities at the

Queen Elizabeth Hospital, especially in comparison with hospitals elsewhere in the Third World.

I also paid a series of visits to examine the treattent of drug addiction (an historic problem) and the care of the physically and mentally handicapped. More facilities are needed and planned, but existing services are good and the success rate with drug addicts is strikingly high.

In the field of social welfare, expenditure has increased at a compound rate of 40% a year over the past eight years, and per capita expenditure is something like 25 times that in the nearest equivalent society, Singapore. Most of the money provides non-contributory but means-tested cash payments equivalent to supplementary benefit. Green papers on extensions of the benefit system have been published and discussed and action is imminent.

Underpinning action in all the above fields is the continued expansion and improvement of the 25 year old public housing programme, which currently accommodates 44% of Hong Kong's 4.5 million and which will, house another 1.5 million people by the mid 1980s. The new town I saw was well-planned and provides very decent accommodation by

local standards.

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The industriousness of Hong Kong's population has raised per capita income to £1,400, but the colony lives permanently on a knife-edge. A sharp increase in immigration (currently the worry is expellées from Vietnam) would make housing expansion plans inadequate. Changes in international trading arrangements could throw thousands out of work. A change of mood in Peking would transform the investment climate. Hong Kong's vulnerability makes it psychologically, if no longer economically, dependent on the UK. I am sure that we should remember this when we make policies that affect the colony: MFA and citizenship law are cases in point.

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