ENG-2014 — Page 182

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Health

special health services for people in specific age groups who do not require immediate hospital

care.

Clinic Services

Primary care services in Hong Kong are mainly provided by the private sector. Public general outpatient clinic services under the HA are primarily targeted at serving the elderly, low-income families and chronic disease patients. The HA operates 73 general outpatient clinics throughout the territory. In 2014, some 1.52 million people used these services, with 6.17 million attendances recorded. On average, about 31 million outpatient visits are made to private Western medicine clinics in Hong Kong each year.

To promote the development of 'evidence-based' Chinese medicine practice and to increase training opportunities for local university graduates in Chinese medicine, the HA has collaborated with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and local universities to set up 18 public Chinese medicine clinics. In 2014, these clinics provided services for about 160,000 patients involving more than one million attendances. Private Chinese medicine clinics (including about 40 Chinese medicine clinics operated by local universities and NGOs on a self- financing basis) recorded about 7.5 million attendances each year.

Family Health

The DH provides a range of health promotion and disease prevention services through its 31 maternal and child health centres and three women's health centres for children up to five years of age, and women aged 64 or below. The maternal and child health centres offer an Integrated Child Health and Development Programme for parents and caregivers to promote children's holistic health and well-being. The programme's core components are parenting, immunisation, and health and developmental surveillance.

Antenatal, postnatal, family planning, and cervical screening services are provided for women. These centres also provide health education, including psycho-social health, personal relationships, and physical health and healthy lifestyle for women. Some 29,000 expectant mothers and 58,200 newborn children attended maternal and child health centres in 2014, representing about 49 per cent and 96 per cent of the total numbers of expectant mothers and newborn children in Hong Kong respectively.

The Family Health Service under the DH also provides information on child care, parenting and health through various channels such as information leaflets, seminars/workshops, websites and a 24-hour information hotline. The Family Planning Association of Hong Kong offers services and health information on sexual and reproductive health treatments and counselling at its clinics, youth healthcare centres, activity and resource centre and women's clubs. In 2014, over 200,000 people used its services.

Student Health

The DH provides health screening and individual counselling to primary and secondary school students through its 12 student health service centres and three special assessment centres. In the 2013-14 school year, about 648,000 primary and secondary students joined these programmes. In addition, school health inspectors check schools' hygiene standards. School

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