A baby born to a mainland woman sleeps in the ward of a private hospital. In 2010, 47 percent of newborns in Hong Kong were delivered by mainland women. Edmond Tang / China Daily

The government is considering raising charges for mainland women giving birth in the city's public hospitals, as a result of rising cost of medicine and increase in staff salaries, said Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok Friday.

The announcement came after Chief Secretary for Administration Henry Tang Ying-yen said Thursday that 41,000 out of 88,000 babies (47 percent) born in the city in 2010 were born to mainland women.

Tang said the number of mainland women expected to give births in Hong Kong is likely to surge to 50,000 a year in the near future.

The proportion has grown steadily in the past decade. In 2001, only 16 percent of city's newly born babies were to mainland mothers.

In 2010, there were 10,696 deliveries in public hospitals from non-Hong Kong residents, the majority of whom are believed to come from the mainland, according to statistics from the Hospital Authority.

This means, approximately, out of four mainland mothers to give birth in the city, one delivers in a public hospital.

Hong Kong public hospitals currently charge non-Hong Kong residents from HK$39,000 to HK$48,000 for a natural delivery, depending on whether a reservation has been made in advance.

The fee includes prenatal checks, medical services during delivery and two nights' stay, according to the Hospital Authority.

Meanwhile, no adjustment was reported on delivery fees in private hospitals, which vary in a large degree but are usually higher than in public hospitals.

A Beijing resident surnamed Zhou, who arrived in Hong Kong Friday and planned to give birth to her baby in Baptist Hospital, a private hospital in Kowloon, in the coming days, told China Daily that it cost her 60,000 yuan for the delivery and five nights' stay in the hospital, compared with an average fee of 16,000 yuan in public hospitals in Beijing.

Under current immigration laws, children born in Hong Kong are Hong Kong residents at births.

However, their parents do not automatically qualify for this status.

"The major challenge we are facing nowadays is that it is hard to ensure whether these newborns to mainland women will move back to the SAR in future and when they will come back," said Tang.

He said parents of 33,000 newborns in 2010 were not Hong Kong permanent residents.

Tang estimated that only 5 percent of them will live in Hong Kong after giving births.

"Rising up delivery fees for mainland women may help to reserve more public healthcare resources, thus to meet the ever-increasing local healthcare demand," said Eddie Tsang, communications officer at the Society for Community Organization, a Hong Kong NGO that is concerned with social welfare issues.

Tsang added that the city has seen a shortage of healthcare resources at public hospitals in recent years as a result of its aging population.

"I don't think they will occupy that much resource, as they have to pay at least HK$39,000 to bear a baby in Hong Kong, whereas we only have to pay HK$100 per day for the bed," said a woman surnamed Ho, a native Hong Kong resident who was expecting her baby on Sunday in Queen Mary Hospital.

Yu, 29, a Hong Kong woman who will see her baby's arrival in two weeks, said she did see a large number of mainland mothers in the city's hospitals, but she had not felt the influence of it so far.

Andrea Deng contributed to the story.

China Daily

(HK Edition 03/05/2011 page1)