Health Right Project

As one of the contracting governments of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Hong Kong has the responsibility to take positive measures and implement it in order to achieve the ideals of protecting human rights in human rights conventions.

 

The Hong Kong community implements the right to health mainly through public medical services, paying the public’s expenditure on medical services and nursing needs through taxation, safeguarding the health of the public and fulfilling the responsibilities of the contracting governments of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. However, public health services continue to have problems in recent years, including huge medical expenses, increased pressure on frontline staff, rising adverse incidence and declining treatment quality. All kinds of problems make people worrying about whether the public medical system can continue to be maintained. In the face of these serious problems, it is necessary to make reforms from policies and systems to ensure that public medical services can be sustained and the public can obtain quality services.

 

Since the mid-1980s, SoCO has paid attention to medical policy, system and service issues. Over the years, it has been expressing opinions on the health and medical services needs of grassroots citizens. SoCO has also joined hands with patients to organize government and hospital authorities to reflect their demands and improve services.

 

In addition, when adverse incident occurs, patients and their families are often overwhelmed. In the face of a huge medical system, patients and their families are more guilty of complaints and helplessness. In 1992, SoCO assisted the victims of medical malpractice to set up the “Patient Rights Association”. Since then, the Society has been committed to assisting patients and their families who have suffered medical malpractices to conduct complaints and civil claims in order to seek justice.

Our service:

  • Promote patient participation in medical reform and express patient opinions
  • Handling about 400 requests for help and in-depth follow-up of about 40 serious adverse incidents each year
  • Helping hundreds of victims of adverse incidents to make complaints and claims over the years, the total amount of successful claims exceeds 20 million Hong Kong dollars