ENG-2010 — Page 208

162 Health

clinics, youth healthcare centres, women's clubs, and libraries. These received subsidies amounting to $36.72 million in the 2009-10 financial year. Over 200 000 people used these services in 2009.

Student Health

The DH provides health checks and individual counselling to primary and secondary school students at its 12 student health service centres and three special assessment centres. A total of 403 592 primary one to secondary one students used the services in the 2009-10 school year.

In addition, school health inspectors pay visits to schools to check on their hygiene standards, while health officers and nurses provide advice on preventing communicable diseases. School Immunisation Teams under the auspices of the department's Centre of Health Protection make annual visits to primary schools to administer vaccinations.

Elderly Health

The DH 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 and encourage healthy living and their family's support. 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 caring. In 2010, the elderly health centres recorded 39 110 enrolments and 175 315 attendances for health assessment

health assessment and medical consultation, while the visiting health teams provided service to 288 008 client

contacts.

Community Health

In line with the international trend of greater focus on development of ambulatory and community care programmes,

programmes, the HA has stepped up the development of community healthcare services to reduce reliance on inpatient services and facilitate patients' rehabilitation in the community. In 2009, the HA continued to step up training for family physicians, community paediatricians, community physicians, general practitioners and other community health. practitioners in the drive to improve community health care.

The HA spent $800 million on community health services in the 2009-10 financial year. In 2010, a total of 1 820 100 home visits and outreach care services were conducted, including those for elderly people and mental patients.

Over 80 per cent of those receiving community nursing care are elderly people. Community Geriatric Assessment Teams make regular visits to residential care homes for the elderly (RCHEs) to assess residents' medical needs and to provide them with treatment. They also train RCHE staff to improve their service quality. To strengthen the support for elderly people discharged from hospital, HA launched an integrated Discharge Support Trial Programme for Elderly Patients in March 2008. The programme aims to reduce the unplanned hospital re-admission rate of high-risk