Time bomb waiting to explode
We are just a group of mothers, fighting for our rights and trying to ensure both our babies and ourselves get decent medical care, as promised by our chief executive.
We met at a forum on the internet, sharing ideas and experiences of being a mother. We noticed that the number of pregnant mainlanders coming to Hong Kong was rising at an alarming rate, and with help from legislator Leung Yiu-chung, we organised a protest with just a few pregnant women, their families and babies in strollers. We were surprised when our protest ignited the entire issue, and the media and government started to pay attention.
The new government measures are welcome, but still we worry about how they will be executed. Immigration officers may be blamed for mistakenly defining a female visitor with a big tummy as pregnant; some female visitors in early pregnancy may come to Hong Kong and hide until their babies are due.
In the past, when there was no quota system in hospitals, we were told everyone would have access to midwives, beds and proper medical care, but that was not the case. Hopefully, now, there will be no more beds in corridors or next to toilets, and mothers will not have to wait hours for wounds to be sewn up and new-born babies to be washed.
My baby will be born in mid-March, about six weeks after the measures come into force, and I certainly hope the situation will have improved by then.
The new charge of HK$48,000 is no deterrent. When compared with the penalty those parents have to pay under the one-child scheme on the mainland, it is relatively cheap.
Our government should, no matter which route these mainland women are taking to give birth in a Hong Kong hospital, make them pay HK$48,000. If a woman is about to give birth when she crosses the border, our immigration authorities should not allow her to enter Hong Kong.
This is for her own sake - a woman about to deliver should look for a nearby hospital, instead of travelling to Hong Kong. We shouldn't encourage anyone who is trying to endanger herself and the unborn baby she is carrying.
Pregnant women who come for better medical care, or so their children can get Hong Kong citizenship, have no connection with Hong Kong. Some don't even have relatives here. There is no way of knowing if they are going to raise the child here, so the government is unable to plan future education, housing, welfare and health resources for them.
Should we build schools for them to attend? Should we cater for them in future budgets for civic needs?
This will lead to a big problem, just like the problem of antenatal care we are facing: another bomb is going to explode!
Some people have commented that mainland mothers are being treated unfairly and that the benefits these babies would bring to our society have been neglected, as Hong Kong is experiencing a manpower crisis at the moment.
So, why does our government have such systems as the Quality Migrant Admission Scheme? We want quality mainland and overseas professionals to settle in Hong Kong.
It is quality, not quantity, that counts. It will take 20 years for mainlanders' babies to become the manpower that we are looking for. How many resources will they draw from our society in those 20 years?
The birth rate in Hong Kong will increase if our government encourages and supports local parents through simple measures such as reducing tax, building more child daycare services and giving our children allowances.
Ella Lau is a pregnant Hong Kong woman instrumental in organising November's protest to highlight the problem of overcrowding in obstetric care in local hospitals.
