{"id":226177,"date":"2026-01-10T04:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T04:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/226177\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T04:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T04:36:08","slug":"hong-kong-hospital-ae-department-visits-fall-12-after-new-fees-take-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/226177\/","title":{"rendered":"Hong Kong hospital A&#038;E department visits fall 12% after new fees take effect"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Visits to accident and emergency (A&amp;E) departments at Hong Kong\u2019s public hospitals have dropped by nearly 12 per cent since a new pricing regime took effect, while the number of people benefiting from fee waivers has tripled.<\/p>\n<p>The Hospital Authority said on Friday that in the first week after the <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/hong-kong\/health-environment\/article\/3338203\/x-rays-free-ae-cost-more-post-breaks-down-hong-kongs-new-hospital-fees?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">new fees regime<\/a> was implemented on New Year\u2019s Day it had seen a \u201csignificant decrease\u201d in average daily A&amp;E attendance, while more low-income families and underprivileged groups were being supported.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cThe service data of the past week shows that the fees and charges reform allowed A&amp;Es to perform their emergency care function more effectively,\u201d an authority spokesman said.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cA&amp;Es can better concentrate resources, treat patients with urgent medical needs more effectively and improve treatment efficiency for urgent cases.\u201d<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Between January 1 and 7, 32,147 patients attended the 18 A&amp;Es operated by the authority, a decrease of 11.9 per cent from the same period last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Visits to accident and emergency (A&amp;E) departments at Hong Kong\u2019s public hospitals have dropped by nearly 12 per&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[135081,135083,14324,135084,134,527,34848,135086,4431,66915,135082,135085,60754,111,139,69,6293,135080,95005,135087],"class_list":{"0":"post-226177","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ae","9":"tag-accident-and-emergency","10":"tag-ageing-population","11":"tag-fee-waivers","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-healthcare","14":"tag-healthcare-system","15":"tag-hk3-billion","16":"tag-hong-kong","17":"tag-hospital-authority","18":"tag-january-1","19":"tag-medical-fee-waiver","20":"tag-new-years-day","21":"tag-new-zealand","22":"tag-newzealand","23":"tag-nz","24":"tag-patients","25":"tag-pricing-regime","26":"tag-public-hospitals","27":"tag-urgent-cases"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}