Sai Kung District Community Center (“SKDCC”) is committed to breaking the barriers of geographical dispersion and inconvenience in rural areas with technology, anticipating the perception of rural areas of Hong Kong as enticing alternatives to urban regions. By channeling community capital into the rural community, they are realizing their mission: “to connect and mobilize community resources, to love and care our folks and nature across Sai Kung.”

In joint efforts with ZeShan, SKDCC is providing primary healthcare services for village residents in a new program: Tele-healthcare and Medication Guidance Pilot Project in Sai Kung Rural Communities. The concerns of rural residents often remain in the periphery of the government’s attention, and is hardly addressed by healthcare resources currently provided by the government. One particular pain point is the difficulty rural residents face in reaching mainstream services and resources, especially the elderly population. This situation has only been exacerbated by the current COVID-19 epidemic, where it has become more difficult for them to update their health status, get medical follow-ups, and receive necessary treatment. SKDCC’s program aims at filling this service gap.

While the concept behind this project was not created from scratch, it not been realized due to a lack of resources specifically allocated by Hong Kong’s system to improve the aforementioned situation in rural areas. So far, the program has addressed 40 cases through the provision of 173 home-visit sessions by doctors, nurses, and pharmacists. A total of 221 sessions were conducted for tele-nursing consultation, caregiver consultation and case follow-up.

ZeShan and SKDCC are both striving to make stronger impacts on society, optimistic from the attention and media coverage on this pressing issue brought about by this program. We are hopeful that the outcome evaluation will shed new light on both the social and healthcare sectors to improve the effectiveness of primary healthcare in rural areas.