Hong Kong community care teams exceed home visit targets, minister says

A source earlier told the Post that the man’s death was likely accidental, while the mother, who suffered from illnesses, later died after being left without care.

Mak said community teams are tasked with creating a caring and inclusive culture, which includes reaching out to residents in need.

“Each community team has a goal to achieve. They have to visit and serve families, residents and people in need in the district,” she told reporters after an event.

“Our community team members met the goal and some even exceeded it.”

Mak stressed that collaboration between different parts of society was necessary to create a “network of care” that identifies families in need.

The city’s ombudsman issued a response to the Kwun Tong incident on Friday, saying there had been tragedies in recent years where caregivers had succumbed to unbearable pressure.

Similar tragic incidents have also occurred in cases where an elderly person was caring for another elderly resident or a disabled relative, or vice versa, he said.

The government launched a 12-month pilot programme in March to support older people and caregivers, in which community care teams are helping to identify older people and people with disabilities in need in Tsuen Wan and Southern districts.

In a response to the Post, the Social Welfare Ministry said it has visited more than 3,600 elderly people living alone or with their spouses, as well as caregivers of the elderly or disabled so far.

“They provided supportive follow-up care and services through visits, phone calls, meetings and activities, offering ongoing care… and introducing information about community services,” his spokesperson said.

As part of the program, teams also helped 101 elderly and disabled people receive grants for the installation of an emergency alarm system starting in late July.

Crystal Yuen Shuk-yan of the Society for Community Organization said the pilot project should be expanded as soon as possible and cover all 18 districts in the city.

She also said the help provided by the community teams was limited because they were made up of volunteers and suggested providing more training to its members or recruiting the help of other professionals.

“Some elderly residents have told us that the visits carried out by community teams are quite simple and do not necessarily provide concrete help,” she said.

“They said the teams just handed out gifts and greeted them. Some of them didn’t even enter their apartments,” she added, referring to teams outside the experimental program.

Yuen said that even though the community teams had achieved their goals, it did not mean they were able to identify and help everyone in need.

“The government should think about how it can distribute its resources to create a closer network so that more older people can get help,” she added.

Lawmaker Bill Tang Ka-piu, a member of the Legislative Council’s social services panel, said the community care team’s staff numbers were limited because they were mainly retirees with free time.

He urged the government to establish a list of high-risk elderly residents and actively contact them.

Tang said he believed the Department of Social Welfare was able to create such a list because it had information on elderly residents receiving social security benefits.

“We first need to determine the number of elderly people in this community and assess whether they are at high risk,” he said.

“How do you assess the risk? We suggest that their apartments be equipped with a number of gerontotechnology technologies, such as a waterproof emergency alarm system.”

He also suggested installing an alarm system in the seniors’ unit where signals would be sent to the building’s security guard if the tenant had not opened the door for 24 hours.

Hong Kong currently has 452 care teams providing assistance to vulnerable people.