The Health Bureau’s (SSM) medical outreach teams provided services to over 12,000 elderly patients in their residential care homes last year, a year-on-year increase of 12 percent, as well as a 40 percent growth in specialist and general medical services, the public Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre’s Geriatrics Department Chief Physician Pun Weng Hong said yesterday, adding that the scope of specialist medical services and general medical services has been expanded to 11 and 15 subsidised residential care homes and institutions respectively.
With Macau’s rising ageing population, the demand for medical services for senior citizens will continue to increase and, therefore, the Health Bureau is “committed” to improving the city’s medical services system involving the entire service supply chain of prevention, diagnosis and rehabilitation, and adopting a multi-channel and multi-level medical service model, said Dr Pun, who quoted a Statistics and Census Bureau (DSEC) report as noting that the total number of Macau’s senior citizens aged at least 65 stood at 89,000 at the end of last year, accounting for 15.7 percent of the overall population.
The Health Bureau launched its medical outreach programme in March 2018, which consists of five working groups – medical, nursing, drugs, physiotherapy and computer information. In March 2021, the bureau further integrated the specialist and general medical service systems to provide outreach health services for the elderly in residential care homes.
U Sio On, a chief physician at the Ocean Gardens Health Centre, underlined that plans to extend outreach medical services to private residential care homes are already on the agenda. However, he stressed that this would not affect the current staffing, and he also pointed out that doctors are not always present when an outreach team visits a subsidised residential care home.
According to Dr U, each local health centre has a three-person outreach medical service team looking after one or two residential care homes with a total of over 200 facility users, while the frequency of attendance is adjusted according to the number of patients in the homes.
Dr U noted that the greatest medical needs in the community are for the treatment of chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes.
The outreach medical service not only facilitates medical treatment for care home residents, but also enhances communication between medical staff and residential homes, thus facilitating the monitoring of their facility users’ health, Kam Kit Leng, who heads the Social Welfare Bureau’s (IAS) Senior Service Division, said yesterday.
Govt to launch tele-outpatient services for residential care homes
Meanwhile, the Health Bureau, in collaboration with the Social Welfare Bureau, will soon launch tele-outpatient services for residential care homes for the elderly, providing services such as video medical consultation and prescription services, with a view to tackling the physical distance between patients and medical institutions, so as to facilitate the treatment of senior citizens with mobility issues, and to provide continuous medical services to members of residential care homes for the elderly in case of possible COVID-19 outbreaks in the future, according to Dr Pun.
She also said that the Health Bureau will continue to evaluate the effectiveness and optimise the relevant procedures during the implementation of tele-outpatient services in subsidised residential care homes for senior citizens before extending them to private care homes across Macau in an orderly manner.
Dr Pun, Dr U and Kam made the remarks while attending public broadcaster TDM’s Chinese-language radio phone-in programme, Ou Mun Gwong Cheuhng, yesterday.
The public Conde de São Januário Hospital Centre’s Geriatrics Department Chief Physician Pun Weng Hong (second from left), Ocean Gardens Health Centre Chief Physician U Sio On (second from right), the Social Welfares Bureau’s (IAS) Senior Service Division Chief Kam Kit Leng (right), and Leong Tang, a resident doctor of the Ka Ho Macau Federation of Trade Unions’ (FAOM) Elderly Centre, pose during yesterday’s phone-in programme, Ou Mun Gwong Cheuhng, hosted by public broadcaster TDM.
– Photo courtesy of TDM
