|
9 Dec 2021 |
FPAHK’s 66th Annual General Meeting
The Family Planning Association of Hong Kong held its 66th Annual General Meeting today. The new Chairman and Council Members were elected. The FPAHK was honored to have the presence of Mr. Ricky Chu, Chairperson of the Equal Opportunities Commission, as the Guest of Honour.
In his address to the AGM, The FPAHK’s Chairman Dr. Cheung Kai Bun remarked that Covid-19 was one of the major factors for the dramatic drop in Hong Kong’s fertility rate for the past two years, causing the Total Fertility Rate to hit a historic low at 0.87 last year with a continuously downward trend likely to continue. He said couples who chose to delay to start families or have babies because of the pandemic should be made aware that a woman’s chances of getting pregnant would decrease with age and hopefully the community would return to a semblance of normal pre-pandemic life, removing this barrier to childbearing as the social distancing restrictions were further relaxed and the Covid-19 vaccination rates rose.
He said, due to the disruption of services by the pandemic, The FPAHK experienced a significant year-on-year drop in the overall client attendance by 10% last year but would be expected to rebound to the 2019 level this year.
The FPAHK’s Executive Director Dr. Mona Lam made her debut report after taking up directorship at the beginning of this year on the Association’s major works and accomplishments in the past year.
Dr. Lam noted that as the Private Healthcare Facilities Ordinance became effective, The FPAHK Wan Chai Clinic had been officially granted the licence to operate as a day procedure centre. The facility, previously known as “Wanchai Nursing Home”, has been renamed as the “FPAHK Day Procedure Centre”.
She said, this year The FPAHK was in the process of conducting the ninth study in the series of the Youth Sexuality Study, conducted every 5 years since 1981 to investigate the patterns and trends among youths in respect of their sexual knowledge, attitude and behaviors. She looked forward to releasing the results as soon as the study has been completed. At the same time, The FPAHK was set to conduct the latest Survey on Family Planning Knowledge, Attitude and Practice in Hong Kong next year, results of the survey would provide valuable reference for the government and academics to formulate Hong Kong’s population policy.
Concluding the AGM, Dr. Cheung expressed the Association’s gratitude to the Government, volunteers, donors and service users for their generous support and contributions.
The Family Planning Association of Hong Kong Annual Report 2020-2021 has been uploaded onto the FPAHK Website (www.famplan.org.hk/en).