Plans to put up a kind of barricade to keep non-resident, expectant mothers from unlawfully entering Hong Kong to have their babies have hit a snag. Front line workers charged with identifying the potential border crashers complained on Friday that they lack enforcement power and have no medical training.

Dozens of health surveillance assistants, under contract to the Department of Health, have been working on the front lines of cross border checkpoints since 2008 to identify pregnant women who are trying to cross the border into Hong Kong but without proof that they have made bookings at local, private hospitals. The plan is to deny entry to non-local women past their 28th week of pregnancy, unless they have a pre-booking certificate with a local hospital.

The health surveillance assistants complained that they do not have the law enforcement authority to stop non-local women on suspicion, nor is there an adequate way for them to coordinate with immigration officers - who have the authority to stop someone from crossing the border.

The procedure is that the health assistants call the officers on a portable radio transmitter, the officer responds and asks the incoming passenger to produce her bona fides. Some checkpoints, such as the Lo Wu checkpoint, have only three assistants. So when they encounter uncooperative passengers who simply ignore them, the assistants are authorized only to follow the passengers until they can locate an immigration officer.

The task gets even more difficult when the checking is conducted on cross-border roadways. Pregnant women usually enter the territory unlawfully at night, while seated in the back seat of seven-person vans. Meanwhile, the health surveillance assistants said they are not professional medical personnel.

Initially they were charged with placing under quarantine anyone entering the territory with a high fever. The procedure is meant to screen out passengers who may be suffering from dangerous communicable diseases such as SARS and bird flu. They have no training with regard to pregnant women. Some do not even have first-aid training.

It may be acceptable - though not perfectly effective - for them to identify non-local women who have been pregnant for 28 weeks.

According to Koo Tai-shing, president of the Association of Health Surveillance Assistants, when a woman's water breaks at a checkpoint the assistants are not capable of dealing with the emergency.

The likelihood of such emergencies appears to be growing. With maternity beds at public hospitals being reserved exclusively for local women, an increasing number of mainland mothers are choosing to rush into Hong Kong at the last minute, hoping to give birth in a hospital emergency ward.

There is already a dearth of medical professionals, with only one doctor and one nurse working at the Lo Wu and Lok Ma Chau checkpoints, from nine in the morning till 10 in the evening. With only about 30 at the most populated checkpoints, the assistants raised concern that the growing workload may undermine the quality in both areas of responsibility, identifying those in need of quarantine, and identifying pregnant women from outside the territory.

No one is doing the job in Hung Hom train station or at any of the ferry terminals.

andrea@chinadailyhk.com

China Daily

(HK Edition 03/03/2012 page1)