Measures to build caring society

2019-03-01 09:37:45

The Government will implement support measures for the needy to build a caring society, Financial Secretary Paul Chan said in his 2019-20 Budget speech today.

It will allocate $20 billion to purchase 60 properties for accommodating more than 130 welfare facilities, including day child care centres, neighbourhood elderly centres and on-site pre-school rehabilitation services which are expected to benefit about 86,000 people.

Some $200 million from the Lotteries Fund will be allocated to launch a four-year pilot project providing Wi-Fi service to welfare facilities, and encourage them to make use of technology products to enhance services. 

In the next two years, the Government expects to provide more than 500 additional residential care places and 300 subsidised day care places for the elderly. A four-year pilot scheme has been recently launched to offer professional outreach services, including social workers and physiotherapists, for private elderly homes.

Rehabilitation services will also be strengthened. Major new initiatives include increasing rehabilitation service places, support centres and manpower, which will benefit about 9,000 service users a year.

To enhance teenagers? stress resilience, the Government will from the coming school year implement the ?two school social workers for each school? measure in more than 460 secondary schools and increase supervisory manpower accordingly. The move will involve an annual recurrent spending of around $310 million.

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