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Following is a written reply by the Secretary for Security, Mr Lai Tung-kwok, to a question by the Dr Hon Leung Ka-lau in the Legislative Council today (March 19):
Question:
Under the existing arrangements of the Fire Services Department (FSD), ambulancemen work 12 hours per shift. On each shift, ambulancemen may take turns to have meals for 30 minutes within a designated meal break of two to three hours (designated break). If an ambulanceman cannot have a continuous meal break of 30 minutes due to attending service calls during the designated break, he/she may be compensated with another meal break of 30 minutes afterwards. FSD has advised that about 90 per cent of day shift ambulancemen can have a continuous meal break of 30 minutes during the designated break. However, the Hong Kong Fire Services Department Ambulancemen's Union has earlier relayed to me that this figure does not reflect the actual situation, which is that the meal breaks of ambulancemen are often interrupted by service calls. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) of a breakdown of the following statistics on ambulance day and night shifts in various divisions under the Ambulance Command last year, and provide the statistics using tables of the same format as the table in Annex 1:
(i) Average number of ambulances on-call per shift;
(ii) Total number of ambulance shifts;
(iii) Total number of ambulance calls (including hospital transfer calls and emergency calls);
(iv) Number of emergency ambulance calls;
(v) Average number of calls per ambulance per shift;
(vi) Average number of emergency calls per ambulance per shift;
(vii) Percentage of ambulancemen having a continuous and uninterrupted meal break of 30 minutes for their first meals during the designated break per shift;
(viii) Percentage of ambulancemen whose meal breaks during the designated break were interrupted but subsequently had another continuous and uninterrupted meal break of 30 minutes within the designated break per shift;
(ix) Daily quota for compensatory meal breaks; and
(x) Average number of applications for compensatory meal breaks per day;
(2) whether it will continuously improve the meal arrangements for ambulancemen to ensure that they can have a continuous meal break of one hour during the designated break when no major incident occurs; if it will, of the details; if not, the reasons for that; and
(3) whether it has assessed the impact of having meals in a hasty manner and at irregular hours or even skipping meals on the occupational safety and health of ambulancemen; if it has; of the outcome; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
President,
The Administration's reply to various parts of the question is as follows:
(1) As in the cases of many other disciplined services staff, the meal breaks of frontline ambulancemen of the Fire Services Department (FSD) may be interrupted because of the need to discharge emergency duties. In ensuring the provision of emergency ambulance services to the public at all times, the department also has to make reasonable meal break arrangements for its frontline staff. To this end, FSD has been taking measures to strike a balance between the provision of emergency ambulance services and the safeguarding of the welfare of ambulancemen as far as practicable.
In view of the fact that the meal breaks of frontline ambulancemen may be interrupted due to the need to discharge emergency duties, FSD has made flexible meal break arrangements for them, taking into account the emergency nature of ambulance service. In gist, ambulancemen may take turns to have meals during a designated meal break period (Note 1). If they are called out during the designated period before they have taken a continuous 30-minute meal break, they may be compensated with another 30-minute meal break within that period. However, if no other ambulances are available for dispatch at that time, they still have to stop their meals to respond to emergency calls. In the event that ambulancemen are unable to take a continuous 30-minute meal break during the designated period, they may take a 30-minute compensatory meal break afterwards, during which they will be free from attending ambulance calls. To ensure the provision of service would not be affected, FSD has set quota for compensatory meal breaks for some periods (Note 2), but there is no quota set for other periods of time.
Information relating to meal breaks of day-shift and night-shift ambulancemen in 2013 is at Annex 2.
(2) FSD has been paying close attention to the meal break arrangements for frontline ambulancemen, and has been discussing the matters with the staff side. The management has formulated and implemented various improvement measures on the premise that the provision of emergency ambulance services to the public should not be affected. For instance, the starting time of the meal break designated for early day-shift ambulancemen has been advanced to 11am, the Fire Service Mobilisation Centre accords a lower dispatch priority to ambulancemen not having taken their meal so as to facilitate them to return to the ambulance depot for meal, and ambulancemen who are unable to take a meal break during the designated period are eligible for a 30-minute off-call compensatory meal break afterwards, etc.
FSD will continue to maintain dialogue with the staff side on how to achieve a more effective deployment of manpower and further enhance the meal break arrangements, with a view to providing reasonable meal break arrangements for frontline staff while ensuring the efficient provision of emergency ambulance services to the public.
(3) FSD has been attaching great importance to the occupational safety and health of its staff. When drawing up work arrangements, the department will assess the impact on staff safety and health and put in place corresponding measures to minimise the risks posed to the staff when necessary. For example, ambulance equipment such as automatic chest compressors and patient sliding boards, etc have been introduced for use by ambulancemen to reduce their chances of sustaining injuries at work. In light of the issue of meal breaks for ambulancemen, the department has also formulated the prevailing flexible meal break arrangements after consulting the staff side. FSD is aware that the staff side still has demand and comments on the meal break arrangements. Therefore, the department will continue to explore the scope for enhancing the meal break arrangements and take improvement measures as appropriate.
Note 1: In general, ambulancemen are on either day shift (8.30am to 8.30pm) or night shift (8.30pm to 8.30am the next day). The designated meal break periods for day-shift and night-shift ambulancemen are 11.30am to 1.30pm and 12am to 3am respectively.
Note 2: The quota system for compensatory meal breaks each day is applicable only from 1pm to 2pm for day-shift ambulances and from 3am to 4.30am for night-shift ambulancemen. The quota system is not applicable to other periods of time.
Ends/Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Issued at HKT 18:45
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