The death of a 72-year-old man at his home in a remote Sheung Shui village during Thursday's downpours has highlighted concern over government cuts in resources for community services aimed at helping the elderly in remote villages.
Social workers urged the government to inject more resources into the Neighbourhood Level Community Development Project to minimise the chance of a repeat of the tragedy. The project was introduced to provide welfare services to people living in deprived communities such as squatter areas, temporary housing and remote villages but it has been cut by half in the past five years.
Social workers said a lack of resources made it difficult for them to identify elderly people in need of assistance in remote villages and get them the necessary help in extreme weather such as rainstorms, floods, typhoons and on very hot or cold days. The government steered away from the project after deciding to encourage people to use community centres, which social workers said were unable to cater to old people, who were attached to their villages.
Democratic Party legislator Wong Sing-chi said Ying Pun Tsuen, where the elderly man drowned when he failed to escape from his flooded home, was once covered by the project but was excluded after funding was cut.
'If we had had sufficient resources, the man might not have died. I am not saying a social worker would have been able to pluck him from the water in time but the social worker would have been able to keep in touch with him and in an emergency would have been able to alert the police,' Wong said.
Tse Siu-kwong of the Community Development Service, an organisation involved with the project, said 52 teams of social workers took care of remote villages in the past but the number had decreased to 17 because of lack of funds.