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Health

The Hospital Authority operates 73 general outpatient clinics, including community health centres. These focus on serving the elderly, low-income families and chronic disease patients. The body also runs family medicine specialist clinics as a key component of its primary care services. In 2017, some 1.6 million people used these services, with 6.4 million attendances recorded.

Eighteen Chinese Medicine Centres for Training and Research promote the development of evidence-based Chinese medicine and provide training placements for graduates of local Chinese medicine bachelor's degree programmes under a tripartite collaboration model involving the Hospital Authority, NGOs and local universities. These centres served about 180,000 patients involving about 1.2 million attendances in 2017. Private Chinese medicine clinics record about eight million attendances each year.

Family Health

The Department of Health provides health promotion and disease prevention services through its 31 maternal and child health centres and three women's health centres for children from birth to five years of age and women aged 64 or below. The centres offer an Integrated Child Health and Development Programme for parents and caregivers to promote the holistic health and well-being of children.

For women, these centres offer antenatal, postnatal, family planning and cervical screening services, as well as health education on areas including psycho-social health, personal relationships, physical health and healthy lifestyles. Some 27,700 expectant mothers and 57,400 newborn children attended the centres in 2017.

The Family Health Service under the department disseminates information on child and woman health. The Family Planning Association of Hong Kong offers services and information on sexual and reproductive health treatments and counselling. In 2017, more than 400,000 people used its services or took part in its programmes.

Student Health

Health screening and individual counselling are available to primary and secondary students through the department's 12 student health service centres and three special assessment centres. In the 2016-17 school year, about 626,000 students joined these programmes. School health inspectors check schools' hygiene conditions in accordance with the Education Ordinance, while the department's Centre for Health Protection sends School Immunisation Teams to primary schools every year to administer free vaccinations for students.

Under the School Dental Care Service, the department's eight school dental clinics provided preventive dental services, including annual check-ups and basic care, in the 2016-17 school year to about 336,500 primary students, comprising 97 per cent of all Hong Kong primary students. At special schools, students with disabilities can use these services until age 18.

Elderly Health

The department's 18 elderly health centres and 18 visiting health teams provide primary health care to the elderly, improve their ability to care for themselves, encourage healthy living and

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