Separate legal and illegal

Members of the Commission on Poverty agreed on Monday to extend the coverage of the one-off housing allowance to those who live in subdivided cubicles in factory or commercial buildings because they are not eligible for public housing and cannot afford private homes, even if the units they live in are illegal building works.

It should be noted that people living in subdivided factory or commercial buildings may or may not know whether the units they live in are legal or not. Relevant authorities are doing the right and appropriate thing by not mixing up illegally subdivided housing units in factory and commercial buildings with the tenants who live there legally.

The government, while continuing with the evacuation and dismantling of dangerous subdivided housing units in factory and commercial buildings, should treat as non-priority cases the units that are not dangerous and have existed for a long time so as not to make the tenants panic. In the long run, relevant authorities should consider allowing and encouraging owners of vacant factory and/or commercial buildings fit for residential use to turn them into affordable living quarters according to the existing safety code as a viable part of the solution to the residential housing shortage.

When the Commission on Poverty agreed earlier to include in the housing allowance scheme people who live in subdivided housing units because they are not eligible for public housing and cannot afford private homes, those living in subdivided factory or commercial buildings were excluded because their living quarters are illegal building works. The rationale behind the decision back then is that the government would appear self-contradicting and cause controversies if it subsidized tenants of illegal building works. The legal reasoning for the commission's change of mind on Monday is based on the fact that the tenants of illegally subdivided housing units in factory and commercial buildings have not violated relevant law and regulations. The owners of those properties did and the tenants should not be faulted for it. They wouldn't have picked illegal quarters if they had other choices.

This is an excerpted translation of a Wen Wei Po editorial published on Aug 27.

Ngan Man-yu

Medical win-win solution

Currently the public medical service system falls far short of Hong Kong residents' demand, with general medicine clinics struggling to handle super-long waiting lists. As the city's population continues to age, the government needs to be more aggressive in having private clinics share the burden of public hospitals to let the two medical service systems develop in a more balanced fashion.

According to recent press reports, the government intends to expand the public-private medical service cooperation plan currently running in Tin Shui Wai to Kwun Tong and Wong Tai Sin districts, where grassroots households and senior residents concentrate. Under the public-private medical service cooperation scheme, the Hospital Authority will reimburse part of the cost of chronic illness patients' visits to private clinics so that one can see the doctor for just a HK$45 registry fee, the same as at public hospitals. At the same time the Hospital Authority also subsidizes private doctors about HK$130 for each patient referred by public hospital they see.

Some 6,000 patients have joined the pilot scheme in Tin Shui Wai. Some private doctors have suggested the government should allow private doctors to buy medicine at below-market prices to attract more private practices into the cooperation scheme.

There is no question the public-private medical service cooperation scheme should be expanded to other districts sooner rather than later. Currently diabetes and hypertension patients have to see doctors every two months and their regular visits add pressure to general medicine clinics of public hospitals. Private clinics can help ease public hospitals' burden by sharing part of their workload in chronic disease patients.

The public-private cooperation scheme is a win-win solution for long-wait for patients and the heavy workload for public hospitals that also benefits private practitioners of general medicine. This author suggests the government should implement the cooperation scheme in other districts sooner rather than later and review each district's initial implementation to perfect localized public-private medical service cooperation.

The author is deputy policy spokesperson of the DAB and Kwun Tong district councillor. This is an excerpted translation of his commentary published in Hong Kong Commercial Daily on Aug 26.

(HK Edition 08/28/2013 page9)