Lam Disregards Seniors in HK

Lam says move elderly to China, young mainlanders to HK

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has no sympathy for seniors -- even though she herself is one at 64 years of age.

When asked in the Legislative Council earlier this week what to do with Hong Kong's growing aging population and the birth rate rapidly declining, Lam suggested manipulating the numbers by shoving the elderly up across to the mainland and enticing young people from the mainland to the city.

Elderly need affordable, quality healthcare

Hong Kong experts accused Lam about being cavalier about the crisis, and that she needs to come up with better solutions than her simplistic suggestion.

They said it was not easy to lure talent to an expensive city like Hong Kong, while also pointing out that elderly people intending to retire on the mainland needed assurance they would get affordable and quality health care while being separated from loved ones.

The experts urged the government to also roll out more incentives to boost fertility rates and improve local child care services.

On Wednesday Lam said Hong Kong needed to attract more talent. "We need to lure more young people to come to Hong Kong, and offer our elderly people better locations to retire," she said.

Experts say Lam needs better solutions to ageing

"If we close the door and work on our population policy, that will be difficult. But if we make this city, with a population of more than 7 million, part of the country's 1.4 billion people, I will not be too worried about our demographics."

What is she saying? That she wants Hong Kong to be completely absorbed by the mainland so that the city's population doesn't matter anymore because it's part of China and that it's not her problem anymore?

It's as if she's given up on trying to find ways to keep Hong Kong going and wants to chuck grey-haired folks across the border without missing a beat.

Wan (right) holding up book

She herself is a senior citizen but has no clue what elderly people want, which is quality healthcare and their family members nearby.

On Monday there was a picture on Twitter of Andrew Wan Siu-kin, former vice-chairman of the Democratic Party and former lawmaker being shuttled to jail and he held up a book to show reporters what he was reading in his cell.

It was a copy of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A counter intuitive approach to living the good life by Mark Manson.

Maybe Lam has also been reading this book too?