Government injects $10b to set up public healthcare stabilisation fund

The Hong Kong Genome Institute will also be established to promote the clinical application research on genomic medicine.

The government plans to create a public healthcare stabilisation fund, taking up $10b of the 2019 budget slice in further support of the public healthcare sector, according to Finance Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po in the 2019 Budget.

The fund aims to cover additional expenditure which may be incurred by the Hospital Authority (HA) in case of unexpected circumstances.

Chan also added that 19 projects will be added under the second 10-year hospital development plan, providing about 9 000 additional hospital beds.

Primary healthcare segment were also given further support as the total subsidy under the Samaritan Fund and the CCF Medical Assistance Programmes will be doubled to $1.5b in 2019-20. An additional recurrent subvention of $400m will be injected for HA provide more drugs to patients.

In addition, Chan have earmarked $1.2b in establishing Hong Kong Genome Institute which aims to promote the clinical application and innovative scientific research on genomic medicine. A target of 40,000 to 50,000 whole genome sequencing will be performed in the next six years.