【明報專訊】Thanks to the ageing of population and structural changes of society, many countries and regions are facing continuously increasing demand for medical services. As resources are limited, they have to be efficiently allocated to benefit the most people and meet society's needs.

International collaboration

(國際協作)

The Ebola virus(伊波拉病毒), once regarded as "indigenous" to Africa, raged across Western Africa in 2015. At first the international community did not provide adequate assistance for the countries where the disease broke out. Nor did it pay any attention to the disease until the virus spread to Europe and America and put them on alert.

In fact, as early as September 2014, Doctors Without Borders (無國界醫生) had criticised the United Nations for failing to mobilise resources to deal with the disease, as a result of which financially strapped departments and NGOs had to handle the extraordinary outbreak of the disease alone. Although Doctors Without Borders repeatedly issued calls to mobilise a huge amount of resources to countries affected, the response from the international community remained inadequate.

Voluntary medical insurance

The public healthcare system of Hong Kong has long been overloaded. To relieve the burden on the public system, the government proposed a voluntary medical insurance scheme(自願醫保計劃) with specific aims of providing better choices for citizens who have the means to buy private medical insurance; relieving the burden on the public healthcare system; enhancing the transparency of private medical insurances and private medical services; and promoting competition.

The policy address proposes the implementation of the voluntary medical insurance scheme in 2018. The tax code will be revised so as to provide tax rebates for citizens who purchase medical insurance. To encourage citizens to buy insurance, the government aims to enhance the quality and transparency of hospital insurance policies. Sophia Chan, the Secretary for Food and Health, has said that the Steering Committee(督導委員會) on Primary Healthcare Development to be set up would develop a blueprint for the sustainable development of primary healthcare services for Hong Kong to relieve the burden on public hospitals.

Lack of resources in China

As of 2011 the number of patients with serious mental illnesses in China had exceeded 16 million. However, due to the lack of fund allocation and assistance from the central and local governments, no more than 120,000 of them were in-hospital patients, translating to an in-hospital treatment rate of only 0.75 percent.

According to mainland laws, mental patients, who cannot be held criminally accountable, must be attended to and treated by their families or guardians. Compulsory medical treatment is administered by the government when need arises. Due to such regulations, the absolute majority of mental patients in mainland China are attended to by their families. However, since their families lack formal treatment, serious mental patients have become "ticking bombs". A 2011 research shows that aggravated crimes involving serious mental patients exceeded 10,000 every year.

Related concepts:

?primary care

?population ageing

?pilot programme for price transparency for private hospitals

[通通識 第500期]