Advertisement
Letters | Hong Kong can’t fix its health care system with more money if the city’s chronic problems go unchecked
- This year’s budget allocates more funds to health care but doesn’t get at the roots of the problem — air pollution, stressful working conditions and high rents
Reading Time:1 minute
Why you can trust SCMP
I am writing with regard to the problems plaguing the city’s health care system (“Hong Kong’s health care system is teetering on the brink”, February 24).
Advertisement
The financial secretary’s latest budget simply throws money at the health care system, rather than fixing the underlying factors that contribute to Hongkongers’ poor health.
How can we be healthy when we are forced to breathe toxic air, when we are worked to the bone every day?
How can we be expected to be healthy when the government, in one of the world’s wealthiest cities, can neither provide adequate housing for some of us nor care for the elderly?
Moreover, doctors at public hospitals are unable to cope with the back-breaking workload that they face, affecting their ability to make accurate and timely diagnoses. They only treat the symptoms instead of seeking and treating the underlying cause. This results in patients who are in the system never really getting cured and ultimately overwhelming the system.
Advertisement
Advertisement