HONG KONG - The Hong Kong Jockey Club announced Friday that it has launched a project to enable the elderly and terminally ill to spend their last days at home or in a care center, rather than a hospital environment.

Social and medical institutions involved in the project will provide care services at 24 government-funded elderly centers in Kowloon as well as patients' homes.

The project is expected to provide services for 1,400 patients over three years.

A social administration professor at the University of Hong Kong, Cecilia Chan, who is also the project's manager, said its aim is to provide dignity to patients in their last days.