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Following is a question by Dr Hon Joseph Lee and a written reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (June 30):
Question:
The non-emergency ambulance transfer service of the Hospital Authority (HA) mainly provides point-to-point transport service to geriatric day hospital patients, discharged patients and specialist out-patient clinic patients in need of such service. There have been reports that such ambulances often arrived late. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council whether it knows:
(a) the current number of non-emergency ambulances in each of the hospital clusters under HA, the average age of such vehicles and, among such vehicles, the number of those which have been in use for over 10 years;
(b) the utilisation rates of the aforesaid ambulances in the various hospital clusters of HA in the past three years;
(c) focusing on the aforesaid reports, whether HA has recorded statistics on late arrivals of the aforesaid ambulances and the relevant complaints; if it has, of the relevant statistics for the past three years; if not, whether HA will consider recording such statistics; and whether HA has assessed if the reasons for such late arrivals are related to the ageing of the fleet and insufficiency of vehicles; and
(d) whether HA has assessed if the existing non-emergency ambulance transfer service is sufficient to meet the demand; if the assessment result is in the negative, whether HA has planned to increase the number of non-emergency ambulances, replace those which have been in use for over 10 years and recruit additional manpower so as to enhance the efficiency of such service; if it has, of the details of such plans; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
President,
(a) The Government is providing transport services to patients with mobility-disability mainly through the non-emergency ambulance transfer service (NEATS) and the Easy-Access Transport Service (ETS) of the Hospital Authority (HA). HA's NEATS primarily provides point-to-point transfer service between patients' homes and hospitals or specialist out-patient clinics (SOPC) for geriatric day hospital patients, discharged patients (in-patients or patients who have received treatment at Accident and Emergency Departments) and SOPC patients. The key target clients of NEATS are mobility-handicapped patients who are unable to use transportation such as bus, taxi and Rehabus. Patients have to meet HA's established criteria and guidelines for NEATS in order to receive the services. For example, they should be stretcher-bound patients, patients who need to use oxygen, wheelchair-bound patients (whose residence not accessible by lift), aged patients in need who live alone and have to rely on walking aid, mentally or sensorily (e.g. eyesight) impaired patients who are not assisted by friends or relatives on discharge from hospital.
HA now has a total of 133 non-emergency ambulances for provision of NEATS. HA has gradually replaced 87 of these ambulances since 2006 and the current average age of the fleet is 4.6 years. HA will also replace three of the 21 non-emergency ambulances which are over 10 years of age by the end of 2010.
(b) The numbers of persons served by HA's NEATS in the past three years are as follows:
2007/08 2008/09 2009/10
No. of 349,230 370,371 386,612
persons served
(c) In the years from 2007 to 2009, HA only received three, eight and three complaints respectively about delay and unduly long waiting time for return journey of NEATS. For efficient use of resources, users of NEATS are transferred in groups and patients making similar journeys will be arranged to share the same vehicle as far as possible. Patients' journey time may therefore be longer under such arrangement. Besides, service delay may occur occasionally due to traffic congestion.
(d) HA has all along endeavoured to improve the provision of NEATS. In order to meet the increasing demand for the service, HA has increased the manpower for provision of NEATS by 12% from 315 in 2005 to 353 in 2009.
On the other hand, applications for NEATS from discharged patients or patients to be transferred to other hospital are mostly made on the day for the service and HA will endeavour to deliver the transfer service on the same day. In the past three months (i.e. from March to May), there were only three applications which were not dealt with on the same day and necessitated the arrangement for transfer on the next day. Healthcare staff will also arrange special transfer service for patients in the light of their conditions. In 2009-10, a total of some 1,600 trips of special NEATS were provided by different HA clusters. HA will keep NEATS under review having regard to the service demand.
Ends/Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Issued at HKT 14:35
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