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Legislator Fernando Cheung
2018-10-07
Dear Poi Lam,
It’s only a few days before Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive, will announce her second Policy Address. It is now clear that we should expect nothing from her in the development of democracy. Just last week, we commemorated the fourth anniversary of the umbrella movement. The movement marks the most forceful outcry for a genuine democratic political system in HK. However, it did not result in any changes and the government has promised nothing. On the contrary, Beijing seems determined to hold an even tighter grip of HK. The rejection of visa renewal for the Foreign Correspondents’ Club’s Vice President is yet the most recent indication that China is willing to sacrifice HK for complete political control. The road to political reform has hit a dead end.
What is Carrie Lam’s vision for HK? Without any rooms for political reform, we would expect the Chief Executive to try make a difference in livelihood issues. For example, HK has been suffering from extreme high costs of housing for more than two decades. The situation has gotten much worse in recent years, despite all the political rhetorics. The culprit is obviously the high land premium policy. Is Carrie Lam ready to tackle this problem face on? Obviously not. Although we all know the crux of the problem is land distribution, Lam is initiating a debate on how to increase land supply. Lam attributed all evils to the lack of land supply. However, without a transparent plan on land utilisation and given that the developers have a much larger land bank than the government’s, it is obvious that they will be laughing all the way to the bank by Lam’s taking a “Private Public Partnership “ approach in land development. If you ask any person in the street if he or she is confident that the government will make our housing more affordable, chances are, you won’t find anyone having any confidence in the government. Longer and longer queues for public housing and more and more people living in sub-divided units is the accepted reality.
What about medical services? Our public hospitals are completely overwhelmed. Hospital wards are more crowded and chaotic than wet markets. Waiting time for specialist outpatient clinic or scan-based testing appointments is measured in years. Elderly patients who suffered from strokes or serious falls are usually asked to leave the hospital without much rehabilitation. Very often they are sent to low quality private care homes directly because waiting time for government funded care homes is more than 3 years. Last year, we had over 6,000 frail elders died while waiting for these homes. Lam’s first Policy Address promised to increase the services by just 260 places this year. The queue grows longer and longer each year. According to Dr. Law Chi-Kwong, the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, we need to build 40 care homes each year for the next ten years in order to clear the queue. In reality, we are building two to three each year.
Waiting time for care homes for the disabled is even worse. My daughter Vivian is assessed to be intellectually disabled in the severe level. Waiting time for care homes that serve her is 17 years. I would never send my daughter to these homes for as long as I can take care of her at home. But I have succumbed to the fact that I may lose that ability eventually. Therefore, we have reluctantly put Vivian on the queue for care homes earlier this year. By the time she would get a place, I would be 78.
Just what kind of public service is this? Care homes for the most severely disabled persons are so essential and yet they have to wait for such a long time! Is this the way to treat the weak and the old? In the mean time, the government allows low quality private care homes to flourish. In fact, private for-profit homes account for about two-third of the total supply of aged care homes. The legal requirements for such homes are 6.5 square meters per resident with a staff ratio of one to sixty during the evening shift. That’s right. Our frail elderly deserves only to live in an area that is smaller than a parking space for a car. And we consider one staff is able to care for 60 frail elders in care and attention homes. In addition, no nurses are required in these homes, let alone therapists or social workers. No wonder a recent study conducted by local academics revealed that 70% of elderly care home residents are being restrained at various levels.
Those who suffered from cancers and rare diseases are urgently in need of effective medicines. Sadly to say, many of these medicines are not accessible to patients because they cannot afford them. Understandably, medicines developed for cancers and rare diseases are much more expensive than others. With a limited budget and cost-effectiveness as the guiding principle, expensive drugs are always low in the priority in entering the Hospital Authority’s drug formulary. Although last year I recommended a 20 billion dollar “Dandelion Fund” to the Chief Executive for financing these medicines, it has fallen on deaf ears.
As for our children, one in four live in poverty. More than 4,000 children are without care from the family. At anytime, 400 to 600 of these vulnerable children are waiting for residential care. The average waiting time for children group homes for the intellectually disabled, for example, is almost 3 years. Due to the lack of residential services, at any point in time, between 30 to 70 children who are without medical needs but are stuck in the acute hospitals. Dr. Law admitted that subsidised child care services for children under 2 years old have decreased from 1,530 places in 1996 to 747 places today. Parents have to apply for these services with an ultrasound picture of their few month old foetuses. Still, most are turned away because of lack of services.
Poi Lam, you may wonder, what sort of a world class city are we? With over one trillion dollars fiscal reserves and being ranked second in the world in public reserves per capita, what is in the way to providing better care for the most needy? Carrie Lam has spent over 30 years in high offices, including the Director of Social Welfare, Secretary for Development, Chief Secretary, and now, the Chief Executive. Just what is in your way, Carrie, in helping the most vulnerable citizens of HK? Or do you have our citizens in mind at all? These will be my questions for her next week.
Sincerely,
Fernando
October 7, 2018
It’s only a few days before Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive, will announce her second Policy Address. It is now clear that we should expect nothing from her in the development of democracy. Just last week, we commemorated the fourth anniversary of the umbrella movement. The movement marks the most forceful outcry for a genuine democratic political system in HK. However, it did not result in any changes and the government has promised nothing. On the contrary, Beijing seems determined to hold an even tighter grip of HK. The rejection of visa renewal for the Foreign Correspondents’ Club’s Vice President is yet the most recent indication that China is willing to sacrifice HK for complete political control. The road to political reform has hit a dead end.
What is Carrie Lam’s vision for HK? Without any rooms for political reform, we would expect the Chief Executive to try make a difference in livelihood issues. For example, HK has been suffering from extreme high costs of housing for more than two decades. The situation has gotten much worse in recent years, despite all the political rhetorics. The culprit is obviously the high land premium policy. Is Carrie Lam ready to tackle this problem face on? Obviously not. Although we all know the crux of the problem is land distribution, Lam is initiating a debate on how to increase land supply. Lam attributed all evils to the lack of land supply. However, without a transparent plan on land utilisation and given that the developers have a much larger land bank than the government’s, it is obvious that they will be laughing all the way to the bank by Lam’s taking a “Private Public Partnership “ approach in land development. If you ask any person in the street if he or she is confident that the government will make our housing more affordable, chances are, you won’t find anyone having any confidence in the government. Longer and longer queues for public housing and more and more people living in sub-divided units is the accepted reality.
What about medical services? Our public hospitals are completely overwhelmed. Hospital wards are more crowded and chaotic than wet markets. Waiting time for specialist outpatient clinic or scan-based testing appointments is measured in years. Elderly patients who suffered from strokes or serious falls are usually asked to leave the hospital without much rehabilitation. Very often they are sent to low quality private care homes directly because waiting time for government funded care homes is more than 3 years. Last year, we had over 6,000 frail elders died while waiting for these homes. Lam’s first Policy Address promised to increase the services by just 260 places this year. The queue grows longer and longer each year. According to Dr. Law Chi-Kwong, the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, we need to build 40 care homes each year for the next ten years in order to clear the queue. In reality, we are building two to three each year.
Waiting time for care homes for the disabled is even worse. My daughter Vivian is assessed to be intellectually disabled in the severe level. Waiting time for care homes that serve her is 17 years. I would never send my daughter to these homes for as long as I can take care of her at home. But I have succumbed to the fact that I may lose that ability eventually. Therefore, we have reluctantly put Vivian on the queue for care homes earlier this year. By the time she would get a place, I would be 78.
Just what kind of public service is this? Care homes for the most severely disabled persons are so essential and yet they have to wait for such a long time! Is this the way to treat the weak and the old? In the mean time, the government allows low quality private care homes to flourish. In fact, private for-profit homes account for about two-third of the total supply of aged care homes. The legal requirements for such homes are 6.5 square meters per resident with a staff ratio of one to sixty during the evening shift. That’s right. Our frail elderly deserves only to live in an area that is smaller than a parking space for a car. And we consider one staff is able to care for 60 frail elders in care and attention homes. In addition, no nurses are required in these homes, let alone therapists or social workers. No wonder a recent study conducted by local academics revealed that 70% of elderly care home residents are being restrained at various levels.
Those who suffered from cancers and rare diseases are urgently in need of effective medicines. Sadly to say, many of these medicines are not accessible to patients because they cannot afford them. Understandably, medicines developed for cancers and rare diseases are much more expensive than others. With a limited budget and cost-effectiveness as the guiding principle, expensive drugs are always low in the priority in entering the Hospital Authority’s drug formulary. Although last year I recommended a 20 billion dollar “Dandelion Fund” to the Chief Executive for financing these medicines, it has fallen on deaf ears.
As for our children, one in four live in poverty. More than 4,000 children are without care from the family. At anytime, 400 to 600 of these vulnerable children are waiting for residential care. The average waiting time for children group homes for the intellectually disabled, for example, is almost 3 years. Due to the lack of residential services, at any point in time, between 30 to 70 children who are without medical needs but are stuck in the acute hospitals. Dr. Law admitted that subsidised child care services for children under 2 years old have decreased from 1,530 places in 1996 to 747 places today. Parents have to apply for these services with an ultrasound picture of their few month old foetuses. Still, most are turned away because of lack of services.
Poi Lam, you may wonder, what sort of a world class city are we? With over one trillion dollars fiscal reserves and being ranked second in the world in public reserves per capita, what is in the way to providing better care for the most needy? Carrie Lam has spent over 30 years in high offices, including the Director of Social Welfare, Secretary for Development, Chief Secretary, and now, the Chief Executive. Just what is in your way, Carrie, in helping the most vulnerable citizens of HK? Or do you have our citizens in mind at all? These will be my questions for her next week.
Sincerely,
Fernando
October 7, 2018
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