CAHMR Working Paper Series

Abstract: Palliative care service is a growing trend for patients with terminal illnesses. The purpose of palliative care service is to improve the quality of life for the patients and their family by providing comprehensive care such as symptoms control, pain relief and counselling support. More and more people prefer to spend the final stage of their life in a comfortable environment with adequate care. Palliative care service in Hong Kong is inadequate and enhancement of the service is needed. This review paper aims to evaluate the current development of palliative care service in Hong Kong and suggest improvement of the service. Literature review of published research studies has been conducted. Compare to other countries or regions, the existing palliative care in Hong Kong is lagging behind the international standards. This study reveals that the system in Hong Kong is lacking of comprehensive policy, thus limiting the organisations to provide the service in small-scale operations, and resulting in fragmentation of the co-operation between the public and private sectors. Factors such as professional training, community engagement, culture and financial issues are affecting the adequacy of palliative care service. To facilitate the development of palliative care service for patients who are in need, initiating palliative care guideline, expanding professional education and training, increasing government funding to organisations that provide palliative care and increasing public awareness about the service are recommended.

Abstract: To reduce the burden of the ageing population, time banking can be one of the possible approaches in the community to maximise social capital. Time banking aims to exchange one’s time to serve others and the time of service can be saved as credit so as to swap for services when necessary. It can create a virtuous cycle for providing and receiving services. Several positive outcomes to service providers and recipients of time banking are identified in this review paper. Nevertheless, there is a lack of practical adoption of time banking in Hong Kong. To analyse the challenges of the adoption of time banking in Hong Kong, the current practices of time banking in Hong Kong, the United States, European countries and Asian countries will be evaluated. To promote time banking in Hong Kong, governmental, technical and educational support are recommended.