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The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:
The Chairman of the Hospital Authority (HA), Mr Anthony Wu, made the following statement in response to the policy agenda of health-care services in the Policy Address today (January 16):
The Authority welcomes the Government's commitment in the gradual increase of funding to further enhance public health-care services and the manpower of health-care personnel. The HA will continue to ensure the efficient use of public resources in improving its service quality and work together in tandem to cope with the ageing population and the ever-increasing demand for public health-care services.
We also welcome the Government's support for the redevelopment of Kwai Chung Hospital and it will dovetail with the plans for developing medical facilities in the Kai Tak Development Area to meet the health-care needs of the local residents and provide quality health-care services.
The key service improvement programmes of public hospitals in the coming year will include expanding capacity and enhancing quality of services for patients with chronic illnesses. For instance, a total of 150 acute beds and 130 convalescent beds will be added. Furthermore, cardiac care will be enhanced with the expansion of emergency Percutaneous Coronary Intervention service. Clinical treatment for stroke patients would be strengthened by expanding the thrombolytic service to more clusters in phases for better management of acute stroke. More Transient Ischaemic Attack Clinics will also be set up for patients suffering from a mild stroke.
To meet the increasing demand from the ageing population, the HA has mapped out its Strategic Service Framework for Elderly Patients. The objective is to enhance the treatment, care and post-discharge support for elderly patients, particularly in the clinical management of elderly patients with degenerative diseases. Enhancement measures in the coming year include improving the treatment for age-related macular degeneration and osteoporotic fracture.
In improving the waiting time of specialist out-patient services, the HA is planning to further extend the cross-cluster referral arrangement to provide patients with more choices and reduce waiting time through a centrally co-ordinated mechanism. Earlier on, the HA has been piloting the referral arrangement between Kowloon East Cluster and Kowloon Central Cluster in the specialty of Ear, Nose and Throat. We are now exploring to apply the same referral system for gynaecology out-patients. On the other hand, the HA is also planning to post in phases on its website the waiting time of different specialist out-patient clinics for patients' information.
We are appreciative of the fact that the achievements of the public health-care services are well recognised in the Policy Address. We are also mindful of the many challenges ahead. The HA will continue to fully utilise available health-care resources to provide better services for our patients. We will also ride on the opportunity offered by the Government's review on the HA to revisit our service provision with the aim to further enhance service quality and to render our public health-care system more sustainable.
Ends/Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Issued at HKT 18:34
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