The proposals for the future of Hong Kong's health services, released yesterday, should act as a wake-up call for the community. Our public health system is stretched to the limit and reform cannot sensibly be delayed any longer.
This is not the first such warning. But the political will to make needed reforms has been lacking in the past.
A similar failure now to tackle the serious problems will put additional pressure on our high standards and threaten a blowout in costs that are already among the highest in the world.
The diagnosis is clear - over-reliance on a heavily subsidised system by an ageing population, at a cost that cannot be sustained. Urgent treatment is needed.
So the broad proposals put forward by the Health and Medical Development Advisory Committee are welcome. They aim to relieve the strain on the system while maintaining high standards.
Much more detail is needed before we can understand how the new system would work in practice - and how it would be financed. The plans include restricting public funding for cheap services to those who really need them, greater participation by the private sector, with more emphasis on prevention of illness and disease and promoting the role of the family doctor. A key part of the strategy is greater use of the private system by people who can afford it - in particular Hong Kong's burgeoning middle class. Public hospitals would still provide acute and emergency care to all.
Health minister York Chow Yat-ngok acknowledged yesterday that similar reviews in the past have been shelved. One result is that the government is devoting $22 of every $100 in recurrent spending to health care. At this rate, without action on the latest proposals, we will be on track to spending more than half of taxpayers' money on health care by 2033 - an alarming prospect.
