Needs and Our Approach
Did you know that in 2016, the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Hong Kong was ranked as the BEST dental school in the world by QS World Universities Rankings by Subject?
Did you also know that every year, the school graduates only around 50 new dentists? The ratio of the number of dentists to the population is very low compared to that of developed nations in the region. In Hong Kong, for every 10,000 people, there are only 3.3 dentists.
The need
Dental services in HK largely rely on private practitioners and they can be expensive. Government clinics only provide children’s basic and preventive dental care and public emergency services (pain relief and extraction only). There is a great NEED for affordable, quality dental care service for the people of Hong Kong.
Our approach
Since September, 2017, HOPE worldwide has set up three self-sustaining charitable dental clinics. The concept is to provide affordable, quality dental services to ALL while also helping needy elderly with their dental health needs.
Elderly individuals generally refuse dental care (even those with a toothache) because of high charges and reluctance to spend on it. The Hong Kong Council of Social Service found that over 50% of poor elderly do not consult dentists when they have problems, primarily because they “worry about expensive expenses” and “unaffordable charges”.
Our three clinics are located in Yau Tsim Mong, Sham Shui Po and Kwai Tsing, which are districts with a greater concentration of poor households. While we provide quality dental care at an affordable cost to the community, surpluses from the operations will be used to subsidize qualified needy elderly people for treatment.
Our clinics have joined the "Community Care Fund Elderly Dental Assistance Programme" to let the elderly having Old Age Living Allowance enjoy free dental treatments.
In addition, our clinics are also two of the "Designated Dental Clinics" approved by Social Welfare Department to provide fee quotations and dental treatment to recipients of Comprehensive Social Security Assistance.
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