'Expand medical fee waiver to lessen patients' burden'
An NGO said on Sunday that a medical fee waiver mechanism that provides assistance to needy patients should be widened to include people aged 65 or above, patients receiving disability allowance and those on working family subsidies. Tim Pang, community organiser from the Society for Community Organisation, made the comment after the government said it would review fees and charges for public healthcare services within this year. "For elderly who are receiving the Old Age Living Allowance, the existing waiving level is up to 75 years old, so we will propose lowering the eligible age to 65. Another category for waiving should be patients receiving disability allowance. For those who are already recipients of disability allowance, it means they have more needs, more frequent need to consult medical service, so it cost them more on the medical fee," he said. "For helping the low-income families, we think if they are receiving working families subsidies, it is already showing they have financial difficulties and for these families, the government should issue them a waiver. Any of the family members who have medical needs, they can waive their medical fees when consulting public doctors." Based on a questionnaire conducted on people's thoughts of higher medical fees, Pang said the survey revealed that some people experienced financial burden when medical bills began to pile. "We find out that particularly some patients who do have higher medical expenditure to their household income, so we think the government should study this group of people, so-called poverty due to disease. We think it should be another targeted group that the government should study and also provide additional support to prevent poverty due to disease," he said. The waiving of medical charges currently includes recipients of Comprehensive Social Security Assistance, some holders of the Residential Care Service Voucher Scheme for the Elderly, and Old Age Living Allowance recipients aged 75 or above. Pang added that any fee increases should be no more than 10 percent, to minimise the financial burden on patients.