TNAG-1607-FCO40-22122-Minutes-and-Hansards-of-the-Legislative-Council-of-Hong-Kong-1987 — Page 227

A

point that this matter might be usefully considered by the

Medical Development Advisory Committee and I will try to

arrange that this shall be done.

Dr. CHIU : Sir, as there is a demand in hospice care in all

hospitals, will

will the Government inform this Council whether it

could consider this service even in its simplified form and

whether its financial and manpower implications have ever been

studied?

Secretary for Health and Welfare

Sir, we have not

This I

considered, certainly in detail, the possible cost of

implementing hospice type care in all public hospitals.

think would be a very major operation and, as I said earlier, I

think that there are other matters which need to be given

perhaps a higher priority than this particular aspect.

Mr. CHEONG-LEEN : Sir, in referring this matter to the Medical

Development Advisory Committee,

Committee, could

could the suggestion that the

existing service be expanded to public hospitals more or less

on a voluntary basis be included for consideration and as Dr.

CHIU has just mentioned, could the financial implications have

the support from Government?

Secretary for Health and Welfare : Certainly if a scheme of

this sort were expanded to public hospitals, it would probably

have to be on an across-the-board basis and this certainly

would have very considerable financial implications, but in the

discussion in the Medical Development

Development Advisory Committee we

will certainly bear in mind the points made by Mr. CHEONG-LEEN.