Last month, a 60-year-old villager in Wutong Village, Tai Po, was killed by the collapsed trunk while clearing a dead tree about 20 feet high.
The Federation of Civil Servants recently accepted an interview with Hong Kong 01 and other media, talking about the inadequacy of tree management policies, and suggested that the government enact a "Tree Law" to improve the professional qualifications of arborists and the grade arrangement within the government.
Three deficiencies in tree management: lack of supervision on outsourcing, multiple political departures, and loss of personnel experience
The chairman of the trade union, Fung Chuan-chung, pointed out that they had issued a statement after the accident, mentioning that the government has outsourced some of the tree management work, but this does not mean that the responsibility is also outsourced.
Mr. Wu, one of the representatives of the Alliance, is the chairman of the government's general union of arborirists. He believes that there are several deficiencies in the government's tree management work.
First, due to the insufficient number of government arborists, too many tree inspections are outsourced, and there is not enough personnel to supervise them. In addition, the government has frozen manpower in recent years, and the situation is unlikely to improve in the foreseeable future.
"The outsourcing work is mainly to do some risk assessment of trees, but these outsourcing companies are large and small, and the quality of their services is actually mixed, and the government has not conducted random inspections and supervision."
Second, due to the different locations and properties of trees, it is difficult to manage them uniformly. Currently, there are 9 departments involved in tree management in Hong Kong, namely the Agriculture and Fisheries Department, the Architectural Services Department, the Civil Engineering and Development Department, the Drainage Services Department, the Highways Department, The Housing Department, the Lands Department, the Leisure and Cultural Department and the Water Supplies Department are involved in various political affairs.
He believes that there is a need for a higher-level department to integrate tree management, which has already been reflected to the Development Bureau.
In addition, Mr. Wu mentioned that the tree management work of different departments also has a common problem. The grades of the relevant personnel are too mobile. "Maybe today's tree management will be transferred to the sports field soon, and few employees can focus on tree management work. , resulting in loss of experience.”
Mr. Wu suggested that as a start, the government should first enact the Tree Law to improve the professional qualifications of arborists and the grade arrangement within the government. It’s a vicious circle.” The government does not have enough arborists, and it has to rely on outsourcers instead. The quality of service varies, but the government itself does not have enough personnel to monitor the quality of service. The problem is finally resolved. Security risks.
Lin Zegan (left), executive member of the trade union and vice-chairman of the Dental Therapist Association of the Department of Health.
(Photo by Lin Jian)
Government dental therapists advocate lifting work restrictions to provide more services to citizens
In addition, Lam Chak Kan, executive member of the trade union and vice-chairman of the Dental Therapist Association of the Department of Health, mentioned that the government needs to conduct a comprehensive review of the primary dental policy. He pointed out that the current dental services of the Department of Health basically only provide tooth extraction services to ordinary non-civil servants.
In the "Policy Address", the Government proposed to set up a working group on the development of dental care services. Lam Chak-kan expressed his welcome in principle.
He said that there are many areas for improvement in the current primary dental policy. For example, the current dental therapists are mainly responsible for dental examinations, preventive treatment, fillings and extractions, and X-ray examinations for patients under the age of 18 under the supervision of dentists. Waiting for work, in fact, some existing restrictions can be lifted in the future, allowing therapists to provide a certain level of examination services for adults, which can share part of the work pressure of dentists and release the government’s primary dental services.
Lin Zegan agrees that the government dentists are facing a serious shortage of manpower, and in the long run they still need to hire more manpower.
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