Newspaper Cutting – Fee to Deter Birth ‘Gatecrashers’ (5A Lau Pui Yi)

A.     Summary

Recently, many mothers-to-be from the mainland China came to Hong Kong. In order to get an identification as a HongKonger for their babies, they wanted to give birth to their babies in Hong Kong. However, such behavior brought about a lot of consequences that do harm to the benefits of the local people in Hong Kong.

B.     Comments

To a large extent, I agree that the government should increase the maternity fee for the mainland women without HK husband to use the emergency wards in HK.

Firstly, too many mainland women give birth to their babies in HK will adversely affect mainly HongKongers. For instance, students in HK are facing a lot of competition. If the children of the mainland people have a HK identity, HK students will face more competition and pressures. In Hong Kong, it is well-known that many students study hard and really want to get into the universities. They strive for a better future. It is not fair to the parents who work hard and love their children. They contribute much to HK and just want their children to have a good career prospect. Nevertheless, if HKSAR government does not take any action to deter birth gatecrashers from giving birth in Hong Kong, the prospects of HongKongers’ children will be dimmer. Also, the existence of birth gatecrashers harms the mothers-to-be in HK. As they rush into the emergency wards for last-minute deliveries, the pregnant women who have an appointment to deliver and the gynecologist-obstetrician can’t help them to give birth to the baby as anticipated. It may even endanger the mother-to-be’s life.

Moreover, it will increase the obstetrician’s pressure and their workload. That’s may degrade HK’s maternity services level and add more possibility to the medical accident.

Furthermore, housing is a big problem. Hong Kong is small. If the population rises rapidly, the supply of housing will be unable to meet the demand. It is world-known that China has a large population but HK is just a small city. We can’t bear the population increase in such a rapid speed. It may lead to population explosion.

Hong Kong has human rights, developed welfare system, freedom of speech…… Those things are all china lack of. No wonder how much the mainland people want their children to get the HKID, Hong Kong people have to join hands to protect what we have as they are important to us.

I think increasing the maternity charge is not the most effective measure. The government should not identify the baby whose parents are not local people as a HongKonger. This is the radical solution to the population problem in HK.