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Following is the transcript of remarks by the Chief Secretary for Administration and Chairman of the Steering Committee on the Community Care Fund, Mrs Carrie Lam, at a media session on the Community Care Fund at Central Government Offices, Tamar, today (November 21):
Reporter: Mrs Lam, you had a lengthy meeting today. Can you summarise the concrete measures that came out of this meeting?
Chief Secretary for Administration: The concrete measure that came out of this meeting is the Steering Committee has endorsed an extra item, which is number 18 of the assistance items approved by the Community Care Fund (CCF), and that is to provide an extra subsidy of $2,000 or $2,500 for the physically severely disabled people who need to rely on medical equipment that they have to rent on a monthly basis to support their living within the community, like the ventilator sort of machine. The CCF Steering Committee fully appreciates the extra needs of this group of clients. So on top of what they are already getting from the SWD (Social Welfare Department), in terms of the higher disability allowance, on top of the $2,000 that the CCF has earlier on introduced for all these eligible people, this morning we agreed to provide an extra subsidy of $2,000 or $2,500 for those who need to rent medical equipment to support their living in the community.
Beyond this very concrete proposal, we had a very good meeting lasting almost three hours this morning, because this is going to be the final meeting of the CCF Steering Committee before we transfer the whole area of work to the new Commission on Poverty (COP), under which there is also a CCF task force, again to be led by Dr C K Law. Members have given me that level of confidence that, through their work in the last two years, they have managed to identify those who are not being adequately taken care of by the existing social safety net, and which will then provide us with a good basis to take forward our work in poverty alleviation. And also members expect that the new COP will really focus more attention on developing policies, not only to alleviate poverty but hopefully to provide the needed social mobility for the people in need.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Issued at HKT 15:23
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