Hong Kong’s government dental clinics begin filling teeth

According to the South China Morning Post, the programme will offer around 40,000 annual dental service slots for underprivileged individuals, roughly double the number of appointments hitherto provided at the city’s 11 government clinics. One individual patient registration will include three quota slots, each tooth treated representing one slot and incurring an administration fee of HK$50.00 (€5.61*) when no exemption applies. To be eligible, Hong Kong residents must be recipients of certain social welfare payments or medical fee exemptions and be enrolled in the electronic record sharing system. Individuals can apply to the programme twice per year, and participating clinics are required to deliver care within one month of registration. 

Dr Kitty Hse Mei-yin, a Hong Kong Department of Health dental services consultant, told the media outlet that the city aims to improve its approach to providing dental care to underprivileged people. Residents had complained about the limited capacities of government dental clinics and a lack of non-emergency care, which resulted in insufficient access to general check-ups and tooth restorations, for example, the newspaper reported. Department consultant and dental surgeon Dr Sharon Lee Siu-man commented that residents would not find the administration fee prohibitive. “Our real goal [is] to encourage people to take good care of their teeth and to save their teeth instead of just having extraction as their option,” she said. 

The Department of Health has also announced that it will increase the capacity of public dental clinics from 1 June, bringing the number of available slots from 24,000 to 26,000. 

The developments add to a process of ongoing dental reform in China, where policymakers have sought to bring down the cost of elective therapies to improve the quality of life among its senior population and have sought to attract foreign dentists to work in the country. 

Hong Kong’s elderly population is rapidly increasing. According to a report to by the Office of the Government Economist, the number of residents aged 65 years or older will increase from 1.97 million in 2028 to 2.44 million in 2038, accounting for 31.9% of residents.

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