Bay Area cities to set up more medical facilities
Cities in the GuangdongHong Kong-Macao Bay Area will set up more medical facilities after the governments of Guangdong province, the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions signed a framework agreement on hygiene and health cooperation on Tuesday.
The agreement is the first of its kind in the area after Premier Li Keqiang announced the national development blueprint last March. It was signed at the inaugural Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Hygiene and Health Cooperation Conference in Huizhou, Guangdong.
The agreement stipulates the three parties will work together to establish medical training institutions devoted to encouraging the exchange of knowledge and expertise between the regions’ medical staff.
The three governments also envisage building medical centers to serve patients across the Bay Area.
Through the agreement, the three governments intend to share resources and develop a better medical network to connect people in the region.
The conference is an important event to help create a health consortium in the Bay Area through cross-boundary collaboration.
Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan Siuchee announced that a team of Hong Kong medical experts would conduct an on-site inspection in the Bay Area to help foster development of quality medical services in the region.
Lei Chin-lon, director of the Health Bureau of Macao, echoed Chan saying the accord would encourage closer collaboration between Macao, Hong Kong and the mainland.
The three parties will authorize 26 other cooperation projects under the accord, including setting up a new contingency mechanism in response to publichealth events and infectious diseases.
The three governments will also devise a patient transfer system to better cope with emergencies.
The authorities believe exhaustive remodeling of medical service systems across Hong Kong, Macao and the 11 Bay Area cities in Guangdong will make the region a pleasant place to live in.
Deng Haiguang, vice-governor of Guangdong province, said the cooperation agreement embodies a strategic vision stipulated in the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China that strives to improve the health of the nation’s citizens.
The agreement realizes the hopes expressed last month by Director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council Zhang Xiaoming. He proposed that the central government should provide support to the three local governments to jointly set up hospitals and elderly care centers in the Bay Area.
Also attending the meeting, Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun, former directorgeneral of the World Health Organization, said cooperation would help improve public health for everyone.
A team of Hong Kong medical experts will conduct an on-site inspection in the Bay Area.”
Sophia Chan Siu-chee,