( Hong Kong is to impose a birthing fee o...)Hong Kong to Charge More Birth Fee on Chinese Women,Health

Hong Kong is to impose a birthing fee of upto $6,150 on women from mainland China crossing the border// to give birth in the city's public hospitals, officials said Monday.

The fee - expected to be imposed from February - comes after the number of mainland Chinese women giving birth in the city of 6.8 million swelled from a few hundred to more than 10,000 a year.

Cheung Wai-lun, spokesperson for the city's hospital authority, said the charge for non-native women giving birth in Hong Kong would range from $5,000-6,150.

Non-native women who book ahead and have a record of prenatal treatment in Hong Kong would be charged $5,000. Women with no record of prenatal treatment would be charged $6,150, he said.

‘We will try to implement the fees and charges as soon as possible and we expect to complete the procedures in time to implement the charges from February,’ Cheung told the state-run RTHK radio.

Only 620 non-resident women gave birth in the city in 2002, but in 2005, the number had grown to 9,200. There were more than 10,000 births in the first nine months of 2006.

The overwhelming majority of the non-resident women are mainland Chinese taking advantage of relaxed border controls to give birth in Hong Kong's public hospitals.

Doing so gives babies automatic citizenship in the wealthy former British colony and entitlement to free schooling, medical benefits and welfare payments.

However, the massive influx of Chinese mothers giving birth has stretched public hospital facilities at a time when, ironically, Hong Kong birth rates are at an all all-time low.

A $2,500 fee for non-resident women was introduced at the beginning of 2006 and led to a 20 percent fall in admissions of pregnant Chinese women.

However, many women leave the territory without paying, and an audit report earlier this year found that bills totalling over $40 million had been left unpaid in the
'"/>




Page: 1 2
Related medicine news :

1. Minister Defends Hike in AIIMS Treatment Charges
2. Ofcom To Assess The Bedside Call Charges
3. Elders in Scotland Inappropriately Charged For Free Food
4. Whopping Cancer Treatment Charges May See the Light of Day
5. Cricket Match Lands Mother and Child in ICU after Lathi Charge
6. Doctor Cleared Of Charges of Killing a baby
7. Doctors to Reveal Gap Fees Charges to Patients
8. Merciless Lathi Charge of our Meritorious Medicos
9. Parking Charges at Hospitals Morally Wrong
10. Media Charged With Sensationalism
11. UK doctor Charged By GMC For Professional Misconduct