A total of 40 lottery winners were absent in the first two days of service, Sunday and today, with more than half of them being 65 years old or older respectively.
The Department of Health said the dental street service is designed for people with urgent needs, with limited places available. The Department reminded the public not to abuse it. The Department would make appropriate adjustments and improvement measures.
First-day absenteeism rate is 29.5%, with the highest absenteeism rate at Tsuen Wan Dental Clinic at 33.3%
The Department of Health responded to inquiries that a total of 40 people were absent from the two service days on December 30 and January 2, including 23 people aged 65 or older, accounting for 57.5 per cent.
The total number of registrations was 366 today (2), about halved from the 686 on the first day;
The Health Department reminds the public not to abuse
The Department of Health said it would continue to monitor the operation of the new system, closely monitor the use and attendance of the public, and make appropriate adjustments and improvements.
The Department of Health urges that the Dental Street Symptom Service is a free emergency dental service for the public, which includes prescription pain relief, tooth extraction, or treatment of other emergency conditions such as oral abscesses. The service is exclusively for people with urgent needs.
The Department of Health said that considering the public’s need to familiarize themselves with the new system’s operating model, in the initial stages of the system’s launch, the winners will be proactively contacted on the day the lottery results are announced to confirm whether they have received a text message and remind them of the clinic location and opening hours for the following day.
Chan Kai-yan: No waiting mechanism is not ideal, questions authorities for “missing tricks”
LegCo member Chan Kai-yan believes that the Department of Health did not consider the waiting mechanism while implementing the online registration system for dental clinics, describing it as unsatisfactory and even questioning the authorities’ “missing tricks”.
Chan believes that the Department of Health should carefully consider how to do a good back-up mechanism, as there are only two dental street cases in Kowloon and only open for half a day, so the waiting method is very labor-intensive.
She continued that if the waiting method was on-site, it would be necessary to re-queue in disguise, which could cause chaos and was not ideal, and stressed that she did not support the establishment of a punishment mechanism.
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