PATIENTS suffering from three serious diseases - cancer, heart disease and kidney failure - will benefit most from plans to step up care for the chronically ill.
Heart disease patients are expected to be the target of a major rehabilitation effort by the Hospital Authority next year.
And the 500 new hospice care places to be introduced in 1994 are aimed at catering for the 8,000 people who die from cancer annually.
But while doctors welcomed the move to target chronically ill patients, which they said was long overdue, they criticised the $32 million set aside for rehabilitation services as being far too little.
''Nobody knows how many chronically ill patients there are,'' Dr Jonathan Sham, of Hong Kong University's department of radiation and oncology, said.
''But there are perhaps around 100,000.'' He said chronically ill patients urgently needed psycho-social services as well as more technical and medical aid, to help them deal with their long-term, disabling conditions.
''This is a good start but it is just a start,'' he said.