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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 2018, some 1.63 million people used these services, with 6.4 million attendances recorded.

To push ahead with district-based primary health care, the bureau will take forward the setting up of district health centres in all 18 districts. Each centre will be operated by an NGO with government funding to promote medical-social collaboration, public-private partnership and district-based service. It will focus on primary, secondary and tertiary prevention, including health promotion, health assessment, chronic disease management and community rehabilitation.

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. There were about 1.2 million attendances in 2018. Private Chinese medicine clinics record about eight million attendances each year.

Family Health

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

For women, MCHCS and women's health 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 25,200 expectant mothers and 55,000 newborn children attended MCHCs in 2018.

The Family Planning Association of Hong Kong offers services and information on sexual and reproductive health treatment and counselling. In 2018, 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 2017-18 school year, about 634,000 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.

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