168 Health
and community allied health practitioners to support the development of the community mode of healthcare delivery. To provide outreach medical, nursing and allied health services to support discharged patients for rehabilitation in the community, the Hospital Authority has also strengthened its community-based outreach teams: community nursing services, community geriatric assessment teams, community psychiatric teams and nursing services, and community allied health services. Through on-site training, home carers are also empowered to deliver community health services on a collaborative basis. In the financial year 2005-06, the Authority spent $600 million on community health services. In 2006, 801 500 community nurse home visits as well as 809 600 outreach attendances for elderly and psychiatric patients were recorded.
Over 80 per cent of the clients of community nurses are elders. In recent years, medical support for elders discharged from public hospitals has been enhanced through the implementation of a number of new initiatives. For example, visiting medical officers were deployed under the supervision of community geriatric assessment teams to provide weekly on-site medical visits covering over 200 homes for the aged in 2006. Volunteer networks were established to provide immediate essential assistance to discharged elderly patients. The telephone nursing consultation service was introduced to provide home instructions and advice on disease management. More community nurses were deployed to station at care centres and non-governmental organisations to provide on-site care at the care homes of
patients.
With regard to rehabilitation and palliative services, the Hospital Authority has re-modelled the Tang Shiu Kin Hospital into an ambulatory care centre in early 2006 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
Preventive dental services including annual dental examination and basic dental care are provided by the Department of Health to about 398 000 children per year, aged six to 12 years, covering about 92.7 per cent of the primary school children of Hong Kong. For the general public, there are 11 designated dental clinics that provide emergency dental service for pain relief and extraction. The department also offers specialist oral healthcare services to hospital in-patients and those with special oral health needs. The majority of general dental services are provided by the private sector. The department also monitors the level of fluoridation in the communal water supply in order to reduce dental decay among the population.
Mental Health
See Chapter 10 for contents relating to public mental health services.
Other Special Services
The Department of Health operates a number of specialised clinics for the public: 20 methadone clinics, 19 tuberculosis and chest clinics, seven social hygiene clinics, four dermatology clinics, two integrated treatment centres, four clinical genetic
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