The Hong Kong government today (Dec. 19) unveiled a blueprint for a significant overhaul of the public healthcare system to shift the emphasis from illness treatment to prevention.
At a news conference, Health Secretary Lo Chung-mau emphasized that less than 20% of public healthcare spending is currently allocated for primary care, while more than 80% is spent on specialty care in hospitals.
In addition, he pointed out that the number of persons with chronic illnesses is predicted to increase from its current level of roughly 2.2 million to 3 million by the year 2039, adding to the strain on the healthcare system.
"Primary healthcare is different from the traditional treatment-based system, because primary healthcare focuses on prevention and early detection and diagnoses. Especially, using chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes as examples, if you can detect and diagnose these two conditions early, you'll be able to avoid complications, rather than waiting until complication happens, and we'll have to go to all the specialists and even tertiary care," explained Lo.
"In that sense, that will help us in the long run, not just to improve our people's health, save lives, but also to save money in our overall public healthcare expenditure," he said.
Among other things, the government will promote the concept of "family doctors", especially in the management of chronic diseases.
It is planning to provide a subsidy for the public to seek a diagnosis and receive management of certain chronic diseases – initially hypertension and diabetes – in the private sector under the "chronic disease co-care program".
In addition, the government is proposing to set up a Primary Healthcare Commission to strengthen governance, as well as a Strategic Purchasing Office to coordinate services and resources.
The current elderly healthcare voucher scheme will be increased from HK$2,000 to HK$2,500, and more than half of the sum can be used for health management and the management of chronic diseases.
When asked about a timeline for implementing the changes, Lo said the government will first collect views and refine the details of its proposals.
(With inputs from agencies)
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