Bring In Outside Care Home Workers Now, Govt Urged

The government has been urged to move fast to resolve a manpower crisis at care homes across the city as more and more care workers contracted Covid-19 and had to be isolated.

The call was made by the chairman of the Elderly Services Association, Kenneth Chan, who told an RTHK programme on Monday that help must come within two weeks.

His comment came a day after labour minister Law Chi-kwong announced plans to make it easier for care homes to bring in workers from outside Hong Kong, by temporarily removing a requirement for them to try to recruit locally first.

Law had also announced that 1,000 mainland personnel will come to work on a three-month contract at Covid treatment centres to which many care home residents have been moved.

But Chan said help can’t come soon enough, and there’s no time to train up these workers.

"The minimum time frame for these 1,000 temporary mainland workers – hired by the Social Welfare Department – to come to Hong Kong is within two weeks. It's the same for recruiting imported workers through the Supplementary Labour Scheme: it also has to be done in two weeks’ time, in order to be in time to combat the crisis,” he said.

“If not, it will lead to a more disastrous situation," he said.

As for how long these workers should stay in the SAR, Chan believed a few months would not be realistic.

"When we are at this critical juncture and severe epidemic situation. I believe there wouldn’t be a lot mainland care workers willing to come to Hong Kong, because if the contract term is set at three months, it would not be attractive," he said.

"Through the Supplementary Labour Scheme, under which the contract term would be two years, it could be possible for mainland workers to see there's a longer-term employment, and might attract them to come to work."