'Weak dental scheme response, but participants happy'
Civil Service Secretary Ingrid Yeung on Friday conceded that there's been an underwhelming response to a pilot scheme for government workers to have their teeth cleaned at a private clinic, rather than at a public facility. But she added that more than 90 percent of those participating in the scheme are happy with the services provided.  In the summer, the government launched the initiative for current and retired civil servants, as well as other eligible persons, to receive a free one-off private dental scaling service. Only a quarter of some 29,300 people invited had joined the scheme as of late October. At a Legislative Council panel, Yeung told lawmakers that the lower-than-expected participation rate could be partly because retired civil servants might not be able to get hold of information regarding the scheme easily.  “They may not go onto the website or they didn’t check their text messages. That’s why I had meetings with retired civil servants’ associations to disseminate such information to them,” Yeung said.  She said she also believed some others who decided to stay in the queue for a public clinic did so because their appointments were coming up soon. Pointing to what he described as a “scary” downward trend in public dental manpower, unionist lawmaker Lam Chun-sing asked if the government could procure healthcare services from the Greater Bay Area for civil servants.  “If public finance allows, and if we are able to actually procure services from the Greater Bay Area, I won’t rule out such option,” Yeung said in response.  “We have just rolled out the pilot scheme for some three months. We want to test out this form of public-private partnership before we decide to extend the scheme.”