It is absurd that our hospitals plan to increase the fees for pregnant mainlanders to give birth here ('Hospital chiefs offer answers to midwife crisis' and 'Private hospitals to raise birth fees', December 5). In what way will this help non-paying mothers become more proactive in attending to their bills? Equally disturbing is the horror and alarm these women are causing local politicians and residents alike. The influx of mainland women is only one of the many ways in which our inequitable 'one country, two systems' is subversively made more equitable.
China inherited a small but advanced territory almost a decade ago. Are the services on offer here not deserved by its people, especially the many women who are happy to have children and to raise them? With so many Hong Kong women showing various levels of contempt for both practices, perhaps we should see these mainland women as a blessing. Is not Hong Kong's population a bit top heavy with elderly people? This could be a wonderful way to even it out.
Finally, with so many Hong Kong entrepreneurs having grown rich off exploitation in mainland factories, such health services may be one way to redress the balance. Perhaps the whole issue is more rightly addressed in that explosive cocktail of anti-racist legislation recently gazetted.
WALTER BAUMAN, Happy Valley
Where is the hostility letter writer Nick Salisbury claims to discern in Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee's December 4 column 'The hordes at our gate' ('Hostility unbecoming', December 5)? I see nothing but restraint in her tone and reason in her arguments. He must have missed the news that dozens of furious local mothers-to-be hit the streets to demand a solution to the grave problem she described. While it is true that these women are infuriated at being crowded out by pregnant mainlanders, so what? What's wrong with being mad when tax-paying, law-abiding women are not receiving the health care they need and deserve? What's wrong with being worried that the disorderly influx of mainland women, and the residency granted to their babies, may have dire consequences for the city in which our children will grow up?
Given its small size and limited resources, Hong Kong should not allow for the prospect of welcoming an unknown number of migrants at an unspecified time in the future. I most certainly hope the government will take heed of Mrs Ip's recommendations.
