HONG KONG – BETTER air quality in Hong Kong could save as many as 1,600 lives and HK$21 billion (S$4.3 billion) a year, according to a new study.
In addition, 64,000 hospital ‘bed days’ and 6.8 million family doctor visits could be saved, said the report released yesterday.
Air pollution in Hong Kong has deteriorated markedly in the past decade; some say it is starting to affect the city’s economic lustre by making it harder to attract overseas talent to work here.
The report said Hong Kong had poor visibility 45 per cent of the time and was worse than Los Angeles, London, New York and Paris in terms of ‘respirable particulate air pollution’ levels.
‘If it was an infectious disease, there would be a crisis,’ Mr Anthony Hedley from the University of Hong Kong’s School of Public Health told a news conference.
‘This is a medical emergency.’
Besides his department, the Department of Community and Family Medicine at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Institute for the Environment at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the Civic Exchange think-tank took part in the study.
The researchers estimated that HK$1.5 billion could be saved per year in tangible health care costs, HK$500 million in productivity lost due to pollution-related illness and HK$19 billion in intangible costs, including the value of lost lives and willingness to pay to avoid illness. — REUTERS, ASSOCIATED PRESS