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The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:
The recent cold spell has resulted in higher admissions to the medical wards of public hospitals especially for chronic and elderly patients. In most medical wards, occupancy is already more than 100%.
The Hospital Authority has been closely monitoring the admission statistics and trend. Necessary contingency measures will be implemented to relieve the pressure on public healthcare services and to cope with the surge in demand for hospital admissions.
These measures include strengthening the manpower deployment in Accident and Emergency Departments and medical wards, and better utilisation of the observation wards and other wards. The authority will also enhance support to residents of old-aged homes suffering from minor ailment through the outreach services of the Community Geriatric Assessment Service, Community Nursing Service and Visiting Medical Officer Programme.
During the influenza season, the authority urges people to take care of personal hygiene to build up good body immunity. People are also reminded about the proper use of public hospital service by first seeking consultation with family doctors for minor ailments to avoid long waiting at busy Accident and Emergency Departments. Accident and Emergency Department doctors will assess and triage patients for admission arrangement. If there is a sudden surge in patients seeking consultation, patients with minor ailment may need to wait longer at the Accident and Emergency Departments.
At the same time, due to the recent cold weather and the Chinese New Year, there have been more bodies pending for collection by relatives in the public hospital mortuaries. The utilisation of a number of hospital mortuaries is above 100%.
The authority urges relatives to collect the bodies for funeral arrangement as early as possible to avoid overcrowding in the hospital mortuaries. If the number of bodies stored in a mortuary exceeds the storage capacity, as a provisional contingency measure, hospitals may temporarily store two bodies of the same sex in one compartment, or transfer the bodies to the mortuary of another public hospital for storage. The authority appeals to the public for their understanding on these temporary arrangements.
Ends/Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Issued at HKT 18:10
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