Is Hong Kong’s government targeting the powerless in elderly welfare scheme change that has scandalised city?
- Critics call out authorities over assumption that less welfare payments will lead to more incentive for older people to continue working
- Former Legco president says Carrie Lam’s controversial stance is to defend report by population committee that she previously led
Wing, 58, has spent most of his adult life as a single father working more than 12 hours a day in hotpot restaurants to raise his daughter.
Typically, he began work at 3.30pm and only finished at 4am. The job meant putting up with cigarette fumes from customers and steam from the pots, for a basic pay of HK$8,000 to HK$9,000 a month plus tips.
Almost 30 years of hard work finally took a toll on his health when, in 2015, he was diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer, a rare head and neck form of the disease that starts in the upper part of the throat, near the nose.
His life has been on hold ever since. Aggressive chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments put the cancer in remission but left him weakened and chronically lethargic.
Wing, who preferred not to give his full name, says: “I tried to return to work but had to leave after a few days. I often have to sit down after walking a distance as I do not have strength in my legs.”
With his 22-year-old daughter barely scraping by to support herself with part-time jobs, Wing has to depend on the Comprehensive Social Security Assistance (CSSA) scheme, the city’s safety net.
The cancer survivor receives HK$4,000 to HK$5,000 a month, including rent allowances for his public housing unit, but that is barely enough even with only two meals a day.
