You have to be careful if you are an expatriate in Hong Kong as the cost of healthcare services is quite high. On a worldwide scale, Hong Kong ranks second only to the USA in terms of the costs for medical services and treatment. This means that going for even the most routine medical checkups can be extremely expensive.

Nevertheless Hong Kong 's health care infrastructure is extremely good and has a number of world class hospitals, almost all of the staff at medical facilities speak very good English and first-class Western medicine is practised.

The same goes for dental are which is costly but excellent.

In general, visitors are advised to take out private health insurance. As expected most hotels have a list of government-accredited doctors.

Here is the official website of the HK department of Health:
www.dh.gov.hk/eindex.html

In general, tap water is safe to drink and all hotels also provide bottled water in guest rooms. Milk is pasteurised and dairy products are safe for consumption. Local meat, poultry, seafood, fruit and vegetables are generally considered safe to eat. There might a problem of Japanese encephalitis in the New Territories between April and October.

Otherwise for vaccines, immunisation against hepatitis B, diphtheria and tuberculosis is sometimes recommended. On the contrary Dengue fever is increasing, but the number of cases remains small and outbreaks have been localised so far.

Hong Kong has 12 private hospitals and more than 50 public ones with two University medical schools. The private ones are Trent accredited by the UK international healthcare accreditation. Hong Kong has high standards of medical practice and is one of the healthiest places in the world with life expectancy of 84 for women and 78 for men, very similar to the ones in Europe.

See also the Public services/emergency article.