LegCo Panel on Health Services visits hospitals of Tier III Class A in Greater Bay Area (with photos)
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The following is issued on behalf of the Legislative Council Secretariat:
The Legislative Council (LegCo) Panel on Health Services went to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) to conduct a duty visit to two hospitals of Tier III Class A in ZhongShan and Shenzhen today (June 22) to understand their medical standards, services and facilities, as well as the implementation of the Elderly Health Care Voucher GBA Pilot Scheme (Pilot Scheme). Members also explored how to further promote cross-boundary medical co-operation. They returned to Hong Kong in the evening.
Members visited the ZhongShan Chenxinghai Hospital of Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine in the morning. The hospital is the country’s first Guangdong-Hong Kong jointly built hospital of Tier III Class A integrating both Chinese and Western medicine. It is also one of the first batch of designated hospitals approved by the Guangdong Provincial Government to use eligible Hong Kong drugs and medical devices. Members learnt that the hospital provides one-stop cross-boundary medical transfer services. The hospital was included in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government’s Pilot Scheme early this year and is expected to gradually allow eligible Hong Kong elderly persons to use Elderly Health Care Vouchers (EHCVs) to pay for the fees of healthcare services starting from the third quarter of this year. Members visited facilities and operations of the hospital, and discussed issues such as collaboration between Chinese and Western medicine, the use of EHCVs, Mainland medical insurance, Hong Kong people seeking medical treatment at the hospital, and cross-boundary medical transfer with the management of the hospital.
Members went to Shenzhen to visit the University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital in the afternoon to learn about the hospital’s operations, especially the operations of the out-patient clinics of Department of Family Medicine, Department of Orthopaedic Surgeons and Department of Dental Surgery, which are the most popular departments visited by Hong Kong people. Members also exchanged views with officials of the Health Bureau and the hospital management on issues such as EHCVs, cross-border medical collaboration, the measure of using Hong Kong-registered drugs and medical devices used in Hong Kong public hospitals in GBA, eHealth+ development plan, and Hong Kong people taking out mainland medical insurance.
A total of 12 members and non-members of the LegCo Panel on Health Services attended the visit. The Secretary for Health, Professor Lo Chung-mau, also led a Government delegation to join the duty visit.