HK to turn away unregistered pregnant women at borders

HONG KONG, Jan 17 (Reuters) Hong Kong will repatriate heavily pregnant women without prior hospital bookings at its borders under new rules announced on Tuesday aimed at stopping mainland Chinese women from crowding public maternity wards.

Starting February 1, Hong Kong immigration officers will step up arrival clearance checks for all non-local Chinese women who are more than seven months pregnant.

Pregnant women who cannot provide booking confirmation certificates issued by local hospitals that prove prior arrangements for admission will be ''denied entry and repatriated'', according to a government press release.

The new checks will mainly be implemented at the porous border checkpoints between Hong Kong and China, including Lowu, where millions of people stream across by road and rail each week.

Other foreign pregnant women from outside mainland China would not be subject to these new repatriation rules since they represented only ''isolated'' cases, the government added.

Hong Kong's Hospital Authority says 30 per cent of babies delivered in Hong Kong are born to non-native mothers, mostly from China, who are attracted by the territory's cheap, modern and well-run public hospitals.

Last year, more than 14,000 non-local women gave birth in the former British colony.

As a further deterrent, medical charges will also be doubled for non-resident mothers giving birth in the city, with child delivery fees to jump from HK20,000 dollaars to HK39,000 dollars an increase of some 95 per cent.

The surge of pregnant women from China into Hong Kong is a reflection of the increasing social integration of the territory with its hinterland since it returned to Chinese rule in 1997.

Many residents of China's largest cities now hold special travel permits permitting visa-free travel to Hong Kong.

REUTERS BDP BST0833