Teacher study tour to henan explores ancient chinese dynasties for history education enrichment in celebration of pr china and hksar anniversaries
Co-organised by the Chinese Culture Promotion Office (CCPO) of the Leisure and Cultural Services Department (LCSD) and the Education Bureau (EDB), a teacher study tour to Henan on the ancient civilisation of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and the 27th anniversary of the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, will be held from tomorrow (June 27) to July 1. More than 20 secondary school Chinese history teachers will join the five-day study tour to visit places including Zhengzhou, Anyang and Luoyang of Henan Province to enhance their understanding of the historical background of Henan’s Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties for promoting history education and enriching teaching content, through visits to cultural institutions and archaeological sites, as well as from expert scholars' sharing and interviews.
The first exhibition of the CCPO’s General History of China Series, "The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: The Ancient Civilisation of the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties in Henan Province" exhibition, is currently held in the Hong Kong Museum of History. To tie in with the exhibition and with the full support of the Henan Provincial Administration of Cultural Heritage, the study tour allows teachers to visit various museums and archaeological sites, including Anyang Municipal Museum, Luoyang Museum, Yinxu Museum, the National Museum of Chinese Writing and the Erlitou Site. During the visit to the Henan Museum, teachers joining the study tour will attend a seminar, at which experts will share experiences on how they make use of museum resources to promote history education, to see what can be learned for Hong Kong. They will also explore teaching resources provided by Mainland institutions to support Hong Kong students in learning Chinese history and culture.
Teachers play a pivotal role in promoting and preserving Chinese culture. The Chinese History and Culture - Train-the-Trainer Workshops co-organised by the CCPO and the EDB are tailor-made for secondary and primary school teachers, and will cover Chinese history and culture, arts, technology, and intangible cultural heritage with a view to providing support for teachers to teach students of different ages and levels Chinese culture, thus enabling the inheritance of Chinese heritage. In recent months, the CCPO has held various teaching seminars, and will arrange diversified events in the new academic year commencing in September, including guided tours for exhibition at the Hong Kong Museum of the War of Resistance and Coastal Defence and exhibitions related to Chinese culture, film screening and thematic talks on intangible cultural heritage and ancient astronomy.
The LCSD has long been promoting Chinese history and culture through organising an array of programmes and activities to enable the public to learn more about the broad and profound Chinese culture. For more information, please visit www.lcsd.gov.hk/en/ccpo/index.html.
Source: AI-generated images
Health secretary emphasizes need to prioritize a&e resources for urgent cases, considers fee adjustments for non-urgent patients and subsidies for major illnesses
Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Health, Professor Lo Chung-mau, at a media session after attending a radio programme this morning (June 29):
Reporter: You mentioned that A&E resources must go to those in need, so how would authorities classify resources for those urgent and non-urgent users? Is there any standard for a cap on fees for severely-ill cases? And also, since the Government has ordered a comprehensive review of the Hospital Authority after a series of medical blunders, how is the progress so far? Will there be a review on prescription of drugs?
Secretary for Health: The Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department is one of the focus for public hospital services. It is an area that we must ensure that we can provide adequate and timely service for the acute and emergency patients. In the Accident and Emergency Department, we have a triage system, with the categories I, II and III patients having service pledges, that they should be managed within a very reasonable time. For the category I patients, it's a promise for "zero waiting time". We must ensure that these critically-ill patients are taken care of immediately, but unfortunately at this time we have 60 per cent of the patients attending the Accident and Emergency Department who are non-urgent patients or they are all these mild disease patients, like patients with flu, fever or rather mild symptoms. They are classified as category IV or even V. But unfortunately, they amounted to 60 per cent of all the patients attending the Accident and Emergency Department, that is a substantial drain on the resources and is causing a lot of burden on our healthcare professionals and causing concerns even about infection control. So we would like to emphasise that the resources of our Accident and Emergency Department should be catered for the need of those categories I to III patients mainly. And for these categories IV to V patients, we would consider adjusting the fees and charges, so as to serve as a guiding force for them not to so easily walk into the A&E Department for healthcare service.
Of course, on the other hand, we would have to enhance the services of our existing both public and private general clinics and family doctors. For example, in the previous long holidays and weekends, and the coming July 1 long weekend, we have enhanced the services of our public General Outpatient Clinics. We have 14 General Outpatient Clinics open during this long weekend to serve the patients, so we have to change the culture for our citizens to manage their health themselves on minor illnesses. They should be able to think about managing their own health conditions and seeking healthcare services from the General Outpatient Clinics or their family doctors, rather than easily walking into the Accident and Emergency Department and causing burden on the whole healthcare system.
Considering the major illnesses, a very common example these days will be patients with cancer, that is actually a major burden for the patients and their families as well. Because with the advance in healthcare, especially in cancer treatment, some of these medications can be very expensive. Some of our cancer patients, even in the public sector, have to pay for all these self-financed items, and very expensive medications. That's the reason that in the current exercise for fees and charges review, we are considering not just the Accident and Emergency Department fees revision to focus on the acute patients, we are also looking into how to help our patients with major illnesses including those with cancer and rare diseases. One of the several measures we are considering is to increase the subsidy for the self-financed items. And also considering those patients with severe, critical or major illnesses, to see whether once their expenditure, fees and charges accumulate to a certain amount, we can increase the subsidy, or even setting a cap. We are looking into all possibilities and will come up with a proposal, and would seek comments and opinions from all stakeholders, as well as the public.
We realise that this is a very important issue, but I would like to emphasise that, even though most of us believe that we are healthy, and want ourselves to be healthy, we must prepare ourselves that one day we may encounter acute problems that we need to seek medical care in the Accident and Emergency Department, and one day we may have major illnesses, like cancer or stroke. We want to ensure that the current healthcare system in Hong Kong can provide the safety net for these people. The safety net should be for the acute and major illnesses, not for those with minor illnesses, so that everybody get the best protection. Even though the number of patients in category I, II or III in the Accident and Emergency Department, or the cancer or rare disease patients, constitute a small percentage of the people, but you never know, one day we may be one of them. That's why our current direction for driving towards these acute and major illnesses offers our 7.5 million of citizens protection. Similar to insurances, you never want to ask for a payment in insurance, but you have to prepare. That is the protection for all citizens in Hong Kong.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Source: AI-generated images
