HK Trust Fund for SARS ready to receive applications

Home>>Business

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, November 12, 2003

HK Trust Fund for SARS ready to receive applications

The Trust Fund for SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) is ready to receive applications starting from Thursday.

DISCUSSION

CHINESE

SEND TO FRIEND

The Trust Fund for SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) is ready to receive applications starting from Thursday.

The fund will provide ex-gratis assista nce to the families of SARS victims, eligible recovered patients and suspected SARS patients.

The 150 million HK dollars (19.35 million US dollars) trust fund was set up by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government and approved by the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council on Nov. 7.

Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food Yeoh Eng-kiong, who met with members prior to the meeting, said "I believe members will appreciate the unique and unprecedented nature of the SARS outbreak early this year, which leave behind dependent families who may need financial support in addition to special help to overcome their traumatic experience."

He said "there may also be some recovered SARS patients and some 'suspected' SARS patients treated with steroids who may have suffered from the longer term effects caused by the disease or thetreatment of steroids (if any), and hence resulted in a loss of income or an increase in expenditure."

"Despite the various continuous support that we have been providing to these families and patients, there are circumstances where the then existing channels of support cannot fully address their needs. The trust fund is to address this gap and serve as tide-over assistance to the eligible patients," Yeoh added.

According to the criteria of the fund, surviving spouse will begranted 200,000 HK dollars (25,806 dollars), dependent children) 500,000 HK dollars (64,516 dollars) for each of those under 18 and 300,000 HK dollars (38,709 dollars) for each of those between 18 and 21 who are studying full-time.

Questions?Comments? Click here

HK fortifies SARS prevention and control

HK air traffic beats pre-SARS level

150 mln dollars approved for SARS fund in HK

Is English invading Chinese culture? ( 20 Messages)

Chinese fleet visit heart of US forces in the Pacific ( 15 Messages)

Global survey: Chinese women sexiest ( 56 Messages)

Economist: China has no need to worry about possible trade deficits ( 3 Messages)

Japanese students, teacher make apology in Xi'an ( 17 Messages)

China expects to see trade deficit in near future: official ( 9 Messages)