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Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man, after attending a public function this afternoon (July 13):
Reporter: (On the redevelopment of Queen Mary Hospital)
Secretary for Food and Health: We welcome the funding approval (by the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council) for the redevelopment plan of Queen Mary Hospital. This is very important as we all know that Queen Mary Hospital is an important teaching and acute general hospital for the Hong Kong West Cluster of Hospital Authority. We thank the chairperson as well as members of the Finance Committee in expediting the deliberations and approval for the redevelopment project of Queen Mary Hospital. At the same time, I am very concerned about and disappointed on the general progress of deliberations at various subcommittees as well as the Legislative Council itself. In particular, there is another development project under the Hospital Authority, that is the redevelopment of Hong Kong Buddhist Hospital, being stuck in the Public Works Subcommittee of the Legislative Council. Practically, there will be with little hope that the project could go through all the funding approval procedures in this legislative year. Re-tendering of the redevelopment project of Hong Kong Buddhist Hospital is now unavoidable and delay in the redevelopment progress as well as escalation in project costs might also be resulted.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Sunday, July 13, 2014
Issued at HKT 18:51
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