AN elderly people's rights group yesterday called for remote-controlled alarms to be installed for 30,000 old people living alone in public units.
The Association for the Rights of the Elderly said the Housing Department's system was useless because the alarm was linked only to an emergency light and siren outside the door. In emergencies, an elderly person had to walk to push buttons in three different places in their flat.
Association chairman Kwok Lit-tung said some elderly people could be too weak to walk, and so needed remote-controlled devices. The alarms should be linked to a 24-hour emergency centre at the estate.
A department spokesman defended the system, installed in 1990, and said it planned to extend the project to 15 estates with 3,000 or more elderly tenants in the next one to two years.
She said: 'So far our staff have responded to 26 emergency calls through the alarm system and in all of these cases the elderly callers were properly helped. We have found no problem.'