The Committee on Trust Fund for SARS has recommended the approval of 297 applications, involving $73 million. Of these, 86 are applications from recovered SARS patients and 211 are from families of those who died.

The committee rejected 27 applications.

The $150 million trust fund was set up in November last year to offer financial assistance on compassionate grounds to three categories of applicants who were affected by the SARS outbreak between March and June last year:

* families of deceased SARS patients;

* recovered SARS patients; and

* suspected SARS patients who had been treated with steroids but were subsequently found not to have SARS.

As of yesterday, a total of 714 applications had been received - 299 from the families of the deceased category, 414 from recovered SARS patients, and one from a suspected SARS patient treated with steroids.

The committee said applications from recovered and suspected SARS patients are being processed as soon as possible.

Payments for successful cases for these patients will generally begin to count from the date of application, rather than the date of approval. This will minimise the impact of the processing time on the assistance provided to the successful applicants.

Eligibility criteria made more flexible

Meanwhile, the committee developed detailed eligibility criteria to allow flexibility, to keep procedures to a minimum, and to widen the choices of successful applicants. These include:

* Only the applicant's assets, not those of other family members, will be taken into account in the asset test; 

* Successful applicants are allowed to claim a range of medical-related expenses including direct expenses such as expenditure for medical services, allied health services, rehabilitation aids and services; and indirect expenses such as dietary supplements, related transport expenses and other justifiable expenses on a case-by-case basis. The committee has also set out simple guidelines to enable the Social Welfare Department to process the applications efficiently; and

* Ssuccessful applicants will mainly use the medical services for treatment and rehabilitation provided by the Hospital Authority. But, if they wish to opt for private services, they can do so and the assistance will capped at the levels the Hospital Authority levies for similar services.