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Hong Kong healthcare and hospitals
OpinionLetters

Letters | Hong Kong hospital fee rises a necessary step towards sustainability

Readers discuss the healthcare reform aimed at directing care to those most in need, recovering from a traumatic disaster, and AI’s impact on society

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Hospital staff attend to a patient at the accident and emergency department at Hong Kong’s Tuen Mun Hospital on January 10. Photo: Jelly Tse
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From January, the Hospital Authority will raise fees and charges at public hospitals (“Standard X-rays to stay free despite fee overhaul at Hong Kong public hospitals”, November 24). At first glance, this may seem like an additional burden on the public. But in truth, the reform is not about squeezing patients, but about caring for those whom society should most protect. By prioritising resources for the “poor, acute, serious and critical” patients, the Hospital Authority is making a deliberate choice: to safeguard the vulnerable at a time when Hong Kong’s ageing population threatens to overwhelm the system.

Public hospitals are already stretched thin. Without reform, queues will grow longer, waiting times will worsen and the quality of care will decline. Encouraging those who can afford private medical services to use them is not abandonment – it is a pragmatic redistribution of financial pressure. Every patient who chooses private care frees up capacity for someone who cannot. That is how fairness is preserved. The advantaged helps the disadvantaged.

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Meanwhile, the government’s promotion of the Voluntary Health Insurance Scheme, with its tax deduction incentives and coverage for critical illnesses, signals a growing role for private protection. The authorities have said it would consider expanding it to cover some preventive screenings.

Hongkongers should view the insurance scheme as complementing the Hospital Authority’s mission. Taking it up is not just an expression of self-interest, but it also shows solidarity: it eases demand on public hospitals while ensuring some protection against life’s most serious health risks.

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Hong Kong’s demographic reality is stark: an ageing population, rising incidence of chronic disease and finite resources. Reform is not optional – it is survival.

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