Hospitals Celebrate Chinese New Year with Festive Activities for Patients

Hospital Authority healthcare staff celebrate Chinese New Year with patients

The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:

As the Chinese New Year approaches, healthcare staff and volunteers of Hong Kong Children's Hospital (HKCH), Caritas Medical Centre (CMC), and North District Hospital (NDH) have thoughtfully arranged a series of festive activities to welcome the Spring Festival, allowing patients to experience the vivid festive atmosphere.

HKCH held a lively music show in the lobby to celebrate the Chinese New Year with patients and families. The audience was treated to festive melodies presented by the hospital's staff music group and the Hospital Authority Chinese Orchestra, while a volunteer group also presented a handbell performance. Patients also had fun writing couplets and receiving gifts.

The volunteer team from CMC's Health Resource Centre recently created special New Year decorations featuring horse designs for patients. They visited inpatient wards with these decorations and delivered greeting cards filled with festive wishes, allowing patients to experience the joyous atmosphere of the Year of the Horse.

Volunteers at NDH carefully designed and decorated festive red gift carts. Together with the hospital management team, they went around the wards to deliver small gifts and blessings to patients. Hospitalised patients took this opportunity to exchange greetings and share the joy of the festival.

The Hospital Authority hopes patients' wishes come true in the new year and wishes them a speedy recovery and good health.

The North District Hospital management team and volunteers bring a vibrant gift cart through the wards to share their care and festive blessings with patients. Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Gathering in the wards, the North District Hospital management team and volunteers shared New Year blessings, filling the wards with a festive vibe. This allowed patients to experience warmth and care during the festival season although staying in hospital. Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Volunteers from the Health Resource Centre of Caritas Medical Centre recently visited patients in medical and geriatric rehabilitation wards, distributing Lunar New Year decorations and greeting cards to convey festive blessings and warm wishes. Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

To bring the joy of the Year of the Horse into the wards, the Health Resource Centre of Caritas Medical Centre prepared Lunar New Year decorations featuring adorable horse designs for patients. Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

A patient joyfully designs Lunar New Year decorations at Hong Kong Children's Hospital. Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

The staff music group of Hong Kong Children's Hospital and a young patient present an inspiring song in the Lunar New Year music show, earning applause from the audience. Source: HKSAR Government Press Releases

Remarks by SFST on enhanced regulation of licensed money lenders at media session

Following are the remarks by the Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury, Mr Christopher Hui, at a media session after attending a radio programme this morning (March 15):

Reporter: About the money lenders regulations, so what are the impacts of these new measures that you are expected? The second question is regarding the Middle East situation. Can you recap in English, what's the situation's impact on Hong Kong's, especially financial and family office business? And how would it affect the foreign investment? Thank you.

Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury: In response to your first question about the measures that we put together in the money lenders regime. I would say that the proposed measures that we have are very targeted in terms of issues that we need to deal with. I think one of the issues that we come across very often is that many households are being used as referees in some of these lending activities of their domestic helpers. So that's why from August 1 this year, we require that no more such requirement can be imposed on in the lending activities, in a sense that no referee will be required in such lending activities with a view to protecting our citizens.

Secondly, I would say, in terms of the overall approach that we take to deal with this money lending regime is that we are applying a rather equivalent requirement, not just to domestic helpers but everybody with a monthly income below $12,000. In this regard, we have applied a ratio which is applicable to the proportion of money on a monthly basis that need to repay the debt, and at the same time to make sure that all the lenders in this regime will be able to share information such that there's no one single individual who try to borrow from different lenders can circumvent the requirement.

In response to your second question about how we see the Middle East. As you all can see, on the financial services side, the stability, the safety and also sophistication of financial centre are more robust than ever in terms of how we are being viewed internationally and also domestically. That's why against this backdrop, we are proposing some measures to strengthen our role as an asset and wealth management centre in the current regime where many investors would like to diversify their investments. And that's why we have a law in place to be proposed to the legislature with a view to extending the tax concession that we are going to give to family offices and also to the funds that are eligible, in such a way that they will be qualified for tax concession for a wider spectrum of products. At the same time, in two weeks' time, we are going to launch our annual Wealth for Good Summit for family offices such that we can bring these advantages to the international family office ecosystem. As we gather from Invest Hong Kong, in fact a few of the Middle Eastern families are already in town, trying to anticipate our event and at the same time to know more about what we have to offer for family offices and also corporate investors in terms of our asset management businesses.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the remarks.)

Source: AI-found images