158 Health
In addition, school health inspectors pay regular visits to schools to check on their hygiene standards, while health officers and nurses provide advice on preventing communicable diseases. Teams from the Department of Health make annual visits to primary schools to immunize students against communicable diseases.
Elderly Health
The Department of Health has 18 elderly health centres and 18 visiting health teams to render primary health care to the elderly, improve their ability to care for themselves, encourage healthy living and family support for them. These centres provide health assessments, physical check-ups, counselling, curative treatment, health education and other healthcare services to people aged 65 and above. The visiting health teams conduct health promotion activities for the elderly and provide training for carers to improve their skills in caring for the elderly. In 2008, the elderly health centres recorded 38 453 enrolments and 175 857 attendances for health assessment and medical consultation, while the visiting health teams provided service through 261 360 client contacts.
Community Health
In line with the international trend of focusing more on developing ambulatory and community care programmes, the Hospital Authority has improved its community healthcare services to reduce reliance on inpatient services and facilitate patients' rehabilitation in the community. In 2008, the Hospital Authority continued to step up training for family physicians, community paediatricians, community physicians, general practitioners and other community health practitioners to improve community health care. The Hospital Authority has also strengthened its services to facilitate rehabilitation of discharged patients in the community.
The Hospital Authority spent $700 million on community health services in the 2007-08 financial year, during which community nurses conducted 781 300 visits to the homes of elderly people and 813 400 counselling sessions for elderly people and patients with mental problems.
Over 80 per cent of people receiving community nursing care are elderly people. Medical officers under the Community Geriatric Assessment Teams visit them weekly at their homes to assess their health and medical needs. Volunteer groups have also been set up to provide support to elderly people discharged from hospital. A telephone service is in place for people to seek advice on disease management at home. Another improvement is the stationing of more community nurses at care centres and NGOs to provide on-site care for people in the community.
With regard to rehabilitation and palliative services, the hospital clusters under the Hospital Authority will continue to set up more ambulatory care centres to take on discharged patients for short-term rehabilitation and to establish integrated palliative day care centres to provide a full spectrum of physical, rehabilitative, and psychological services to the patients and families in need.
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