ENG-2016 — Page 186

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Health

Allowance or the Hospital Authority's medical fee waiver. Eligible patients get subsidised check-ups, treatment and oral health education at designated clinics, or treatment under intravenous sedation or general anaesthesia at designated hospitals.

The department also conducts Dandelion Oral Care Action, an oral health promotion programme to educate children with mild to moderate intellectual disability in special schools. to take care of their oral hygiene themselves.

Mental Health

The government adopts a holistic approach in promoting mental health through prevention, early identification, timely intervention and treatment, and rehabilitation.

A three-year, territory-wide mental health promotion programme titled Joyful@HK Campaign was launched in January to increase the public's engagement in promoting mental well-being and enhance their understanding about mental health.

The Hospital Authority is a major medical service provider for people with mental disorders. Its psychiatric services include inpatient facilities, day hospitals, specialist outpatient clinics and community outreach. In 2015-16, about 229,000 people received treatment and support through these services.

A case management programme piloted by the Hospital Authority provides intensive community support for patients with severe mental illness, in line with an international trend to focus more on community and ambulatory care in the treatment of mental illness. The programme was extended to cover the whole city in 2014-15 and now serves some 17,000 patients living in the community.

The government has two new two-year pilot schemes to enhance support services for children and adolescents with mental health needs and elderly people with mild or moderate dementia. The Student Mental Health Support Scheme, implemented in the 2016-17 school year, brings together cross-sectoral professional teams comprising teachers, educational psychologists, school social workers and psychiatric nurses to discuss the progress of each case and provide more adequate support to students with mental health needs in schools. The Dementia Community Support Scheme, to be launched in February 2017, provides support services at the community level for the elderly with mild or moderate dementia and their carers through District Elderly Community Centres.

Other Special Services

Specialist facilities under the department include 19 methadone clinics, 19 tuberculosis and chest clinics, seven social hygiene clinics, four dermatology clinics, two integrated treatment centres, four clinical genetic clinics, six child assessment centres and two travel health centres. These facilities recorded about 6.3 million attendances in 2016.

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