Hong Kong birthrate by the numbers
Sunday's South China Morning Post had an interesting and timely (for me) article about the capacity of maternity facilities in Hong Kong. It's paid subscription only, unfortunately, but the numbers are very interesting.
I've blogged before about the process we had to go through to assure that we would have a bed at a Hong Kong hospital. Because we are considered Mainlanders, we had to provide a HK$40,000 deposit to the hospital, and because we tried initially to investigate options inside of China, we were a little delayed in getting ourselves booked. Because of that, we didn't get into any of the first or second choice private hospitals. We still were able to get into a private hospital, though we are still not sure what kind of a bed or room I'll be getting. Even though we now know that I will be showing up Monday night, they still can't tell me if I will have a private, semi-private, or a ward bed. Of course, the type of bed indicates how much we get to see the baby and each other while I'm in the hospital. For the time being, we are anticipating that Randy and Myles will leave Hong Kong every night until our discharge, at which point we will move into a hotel to finish up our paperwork so we can come back into China with the baby.
So as I wonder how a place with one of the, if not the, lowest birthrates in the world cannot possibly accommodate all its maternity patients, I read this mornings' paper and saw the data. Here are some of the numbers that I find so interesting.
Number of total births in Hong Kong SAR
2003 46,965
2005 57, 098
2007 70,875
2008 35,203 first half the year only
Number of births to Mainland women in HKSAR
1998 6,109
2007 27,574
2008 14,464 first half the year only
Any increase in the birthrate in Hong Kong is due to the increase in numbers of Mainland women giving birth in Hong Kong. Certainly, that number includes Westerners like me, but that certainly comprises only a small fraction of total Mainlanders coming to Hong Kong to have their babies. But as of the first six months of this year, 41% of all births in Hong Kong were to women from China. This will certainly continue to increase, especially as more and more agencies that specialize in providing Mainland Chinese women the visas and transportation to and from Hong Kong. Via Danwei, there's an agency in Beijing that provides these services as well that has stepped up some advertising so as to come to Danwei's attention . While it is easy for me to understand why Shenzheners would want the Hong Kong ID card for their children, being able to take advantage of the education and healthcare systems easily, I wonder what Beijingers get from it, if only the ability to have an additional child, and a child that, outside the hukou system, might have better higher education prospects. I don't know.
As more Mainlanders are able to access it, it seems the Hong Kong maternity businesses will be increasingly pressed for time and resources. The current rules implemented by the SAR make the price difference, for a woman from China, between the public and private hospitals only about 20%. Even as the Hospital Authority tries to increase the difficulty for Mainlanders to access the public health system (nine-month in-advance bookings, deposits) so that Hong Kong residents won't be turned away, the private hospitals are accepting the overflow to the point where they, too, are booked nine months in advance.
We're so lucky that we think we still have a bed at a hospital tomorrow. Had we booked when we were "supposed to" we could have been guaranteed a private room or possibly even a private suite with its own bathroom and sitting room, as advertised by this hospital where we did not succeed in booking a space.
I've blogged before about the process we had to go through to assure that we would have a bed at a Hong Kong hospital. Because we are considered Mainlanders, we had to provide a HK$40,000 deposit to the hospital, and because we tried initially to investigate options inside of China, we were a little delayed in getting ourselves booked. Because of that, we didn't get into any of the first or second choice private hospitals. We still were able to get into a private hospital, though we are still not sure what kind of a bed or room I'll be getting. Even though we now know that I will be showing up Monday night, they still can't tell me if I will have a private, semi-private, or a ward bed. Of course, the type of bed indicates how much we get to see the baby and each other while I'm in the hospital. For the time being, we are anticipating that Randy and Myles will leave Hong Kong every night until our discharge, at which point we will move into a hotel to finish up our paperwork so we can come back into China with the baby.
So as I wonder how a place with one of the, if not the, lowest birthrates in the world cannot possibly accommodate all its maternity patients, I read this mornings' paper and saw the data. Here are some of the numbers that I find so interesting.
Number of total births in Hong Kong SAR
2003 46,965
2005 57, 098
2007 70,875
2008 35,203 first half the year only
Number of births to Mainland women in HKSAR
1998 6,109
2007 27,574
2008 14,464 first half the year only
Any increase in the birthrate in Hong Kong is due to the increase in numbers of Mainland women giving birth in Hong Kong. Certainly, that number includes Westerners like me, but that certainly comprises only a small fraction of total Mainlanders coming to Hong Kong to have their babies. But as of the first six months of this year, 41% of all births in Hong Kong were to women from China. This will certainly continue to increase, especially as more and more agencies that specialize in providing Mainland Chinese women the visas and transportation to and from Hong Kong. Via Danwei, there's an agency in Beijing that provides these services as well that has stepped up some advertising so as to come to Danwei's attention . While it is easy for me to understand why Shenzheners would want the Hong Kong ID card for their children, being able to take advantage of the education and healthcare systems easily, I wonder what Beijingers get from it, if only the ability to have an additional child, and a child that, outside the hukou system, might have better higher education prospects. I don't know.
As more Mainlanders are able to access it, it seems the Hong Kong maternity businesses will be increasingly pressed for time and resources. The current rules implemented by the SAR make the price difference, for a woman from China, between the public and private hospitals only about 20%. Even as the Hospital Authority tries to increase the difficulty for Mainlanders to access the public health system (nine-month in-advance bookings, deposits) so that Hong Kong residents won't be turned away, the private hospitals are accepting the overflow to the point where they, too, are booked nine months in advance.
We're so lucky that we think we still have a bed at a hospital tomorrow. Had we booked when we were "supposed to" we could have been guaranteed a private room or possibly even a private suite with its own bathroom and sitting room, as advertised by this hospital where we did not succeed in booking a space.
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