Implementation and continuance of 'one country, two systems' (2015/06/24)

President, as a number of colleagues have just said, the principal ordinance and major policy concerned have already been discussed earlier and thus do not fall within the scope of today's discussion.

The present subsidiary legislation is mainly concerned with the commencement date and our concern can be divided into two parts. Firstly, can workers be genuinely benefited after the enactment of the legislation, and secondly, how can workers get genuine benefit. These are our two major concerns.

On the first part, we will mainly discuss the publicity work of the Government. As stated by many colleagues, our gravest concern is how to get the message across to workers and their families. At the Subcommittee meeting, we have advised the relevant government officials to step up their efforts towards healthcare personnel, so that they can have more direct contacts with workers who are sick and tell them that they can apply immediately. As advised by government officials, the training and education of healthcare personnel would be enhanced. We do hope that the Government can genuinely make such efforts, so that the policy will not exist in name only and cannot help workers. This is the last thing that we would wish to see.

Furthermore, as a Member has mentioned earlier, we are gravely worried that doctors are unwilling to certify that the life expectancy of a worker has been reduced to one year. This is the greatest and most dubious issue. As pointed out by a Member just now, as evident from previous work injury cases, doctors are often reluctant to issue medical certificates. Even if the patients have become incapacitated, doctors are still reluctant to issue medical certificates, and we have no right to force doctors to do so. In many cases, workers are not hopeful about their recovery from serious illness and request for doctor's certification. If the doctor thinks otherwise, there is no appeal mechanism because the Government holds that only doctors, as professionals, are capable of making the judgment. Unlike other cases where appeal is allowed, there is no appeal mechanism to handle such cases. So, what can be done in this circumstance? This is the issue that we are gravely worried and as a Member has just said, we hope that doctors can be less rigid in this regard.

For workers suffering from cancer, disregarding the stage, early treatment is of paramount importance. We hope the patient can recover but not die. Although this policy provides that only patients who are expected to die within one year can make early withdrawal of their MPF benefits, this is absolutely not the attitude that we should have, nor is this our objective. We wish to see the recovery of patients. If a patient suffers from cancer, which is the most undesirable illness according to our understanding, he should be given every opportunity to receive treatment and this is why the policy should be lenient but not stringent. If he really dies a few months later, his MPF benefits would serve no other purpose except easing the burden of funeral expenses of his family.

In other countries, workers will receive pensions or a lump sum in their twilight years for early treatment of illnesses to reduce their sufferings or lengthen their life expectancy. This is our wish and objective. I hope that the Government can make more efforts to clearly explain the policy objective to the healthcare personnel, so that they can adopt a more lenient attitude towards workers and enable them to make early withdrawal of the money when necessary. This is our wish.

On the other hand, we also hope that the Government would, when launching publicity and education programmes, tell workers that they should not, for fear of disclosing their personal problems to their families, refrain from applying for early withdrawal of their MPF benefits, thereby the opportunity will be wasted. Extensive promotion by the Government is desirable. Workers are entitled to have their MPF benefits, and the money can be used for treatment to some extent, or else they will not have the chance to use it. I hope the Government will carry out publicity and education from a more positive perspective, so as to avoid conveying the message that workers who apply for early withdrawal of the money is tantamount to telling others that they are dying, thereby creating undesirable labelling effect. Although it is likely that workers who apply for early withdrawal of the money may pass away within one year, we still wish to convey a message that they may recover, otherwise workers may be pessimistic, thinking that the early withdrawal of the money implies their death in a year. How can they face their families? After all, this is not something pleasant. I hope the Government will pay more attention to this and proactively address this issue.

We do not agree with this arrangement in principle because workers can only withdraw the money after they suffer from terminal illness. Workers and their families would be desperate, as the money will more likely be spent on the funeral instead of on treatment. We therefore opine that the policy itself is deficient, and the correct approach is to allow workers to make early withdrawal of the money for medical treatment after they are diagnosed of suffering from serious illness, or else the early withdrawal of money would only make them feel more pessimistic and desperate, knowing that they would die soon. If making early withdrawal of the money implies that the person is dying, what is so good about it?

This is not a positive message and we hope to convey positive rather than negative messages to society. I do not know if this is an unprecedented or rare practice. By allowing workers to make early withdrawal of his MPF benefits, it is tantamount to telling others that the workers concerned are dying. I just cannot see any good in that. Apart from alleviating the financial burden of the patients' families in making after-death arrangements, I fail to see any positive effect at all. Thus, I hope that the Government will expeditiously review this policy and allow workers who are ill to make early withdrawal when such a need arises. Early treatment is precisely the positive message that we must get across, and negative message should be avoided.

Furthermore, we think there are still many areas of the MPF System that improvement can be made, including the offsetting arrangement. And, apart from medical grounds, can education or home purchase be considered as the ground for early withdrawal? All these warrant consideration and I hope that a review will be expeditiously conducted shortly after this policy is implemented.

President, I so submit.