Hong Kong as a developed city has been doing fairly well in terms of approaching Universal Health Coverage, but it certainly does not have a fully implemented UHC
system.
Hong Kong has a fairly mature healthcare system with public and hospitals covering the vicinity of pretty much every district, be it urban or rural. It follows a mixed healthcare model, with both public and private healthcare sectors. The public sector,
includes public hospitals and clinics, provides subsidized healthcare services to people with very affordable fees . For example, consultation fees of public clinics are as low as 8 USD. Life-saving surgeries that are deemed medically necessary are also subsidized and could be done at essentially zero cost to the patient and is paid
for by the government. This ensures that even those with lower incomes can access necessary medical care.
The strength of Hong Kong healthcare system is that such public healthcare is funded at no additional costs, unlike the system of many other countries that use some type of public insurance system which requires residents to pay a regular fee
to fund the healthcare system. As long as you are a Hong Kong resident, you can use its public healthcare system. Also, Hong Kong’s healthcare is very strong with two world-leading medical schools partnering with the public healthcare system. Therefore, certain public hospitals which also act as the teaching hospitals of these medical schools are known to provide very advanced and high quality healthcare.
However, there are also weaknesses in Hong Kong system which lead me to think
that it still has a lot of work on before fully achieving UHC. First, due to the dense and aging population, demand of healthcare services often exceeded the capacity. This has led to long wait times at hospital and clinics. Surgeries that are deemed not
immediately life threatening also have very long queue times. For example, you may need to wait for a few years to get your hip or bone surgery done at a public hospital. Therefore, some people have pointed out that “if you are about to die, Hong Kong has the best healthcare, but if you have a chronic disease and are dying slowly,
Hong Kong’s system may not help you much”. If the services exist but is not
accessible by people in time, then it is not really true UHC. Second, although on paper Hong Kong’s public hospitals cover every district, there are great differences in their service quality. The teaching hospitals in urban areas provide very good
healthcare, but in rural areas it is common for hospitals to offer poor services with inexperienced doctors. This leads to geographical inequities, and is not true UHC.