Hong Kong’s health priority should be elderly care in the community not more hospitals

If Carrie Lam’s administration is to be measured in terms of focusing on the burning social issues of the day, and of listening to community and expert thoughts, then so far she scores 10 out of 10.

Nowhere is this more so than in the areas of health care and elderly care, where I confess I have a strong bias, and have been keenly engaged with the Business Professionals Federation in lobbying the administration for many years. So far, that lobbying has fallen on deaf ears.

At last, thanks to a shift to prioritise the bread and butter challenges that face our community, I sense the government is listening, and I feel optimistic that action can happen – despite clear controversies along the way.

Our starting position, as outlined in the recently published BPF paper “Towards Longer Productive Living – Elderly and End of Life care in Hong Kong” , is simple: “Hospitals are in crisis as they struggle to address demands which they are not best equipped to handle.

They are being swamped by the consequences of longer living and of modern lifestyle – chronic diseases and reduced capacity, both mental and physical into extreme old age.

“The answer does not lie in more hospitals and more hospital beds nor in increased institutional care. These are capital intensive and do not provide best life quality care,” says the report.