Budget Fails To Deliver On Health Says Lawmaker

Civic Party lawmaker Kwok Ka-ki has criticised the government for spending too little on health care in its latest budget. The Financial Secretary Paul Chan announced on Wednesday that he would spend HK$70 billion on public health services in the coming year - about 17 percent of total recurrent expenditure.

But the pro-democracy legislator argues that the amount is not in proportion to the huge financial surplus.

Speaking on RTHK's Letter to Hong Kong, Kwok accused Chan of failing to improve conditions at public hospitals.

"Our social services, medical care and housing have not developed in par with our financial growth," he said.

"The figures in the past 20 years reveal the sector funding allocation has been grossly disproportionate to the need of an ageing population that requires more hospital beds and elderly care facilities."

Kwok said a major highlight of Chan's budget was to increase healthcare expenditure by HK$6 billion, an 11.8 percent increase over last year. He described this as "too little, too late".