Hospital cancellations to affect 100,000 patients

Hospital cancellations to affect 100,000 patients

The Hospital Authority said on Saturday it estimates that 100,000 patients will be affected by its plan to further reduce non-urgent services over the next two weeks, as part of efforts to minimise the risk posed by the coronavirus epidemic and to preserve dwindling supplies of personal protective equipment for frontline medical workers.



Dr Ian Cheung, the HA's chief manager of cluster performance, said patients whose appointments are to be postponed in the next two weeks will be contacted by phone or text, using the information the patient had provided.



The announcement came as the Centre for Health Protection said that no new cases of the coronavirus had been recorded in Hong Kong since Friday. But officials said it was too early to say the situation has improved in the SAR, noting reports that the disease's incubation period can be more than 14 days.



In order to reduce the risk of cross-infection among people at hospital emergency departments, Dr Cheung said they were echoing the government's directions to reduce the flow of people in crowded areas.



He said these arrangements would be reviewed every fortnight, and would also help reduce medical workers' use of protective equipment.



Another chief manager at the authority, Dr Sara Ho, revealed that current stocks of equipment are tight, and supplies may only last a month. She said the authority has 18 million surgical face masks, 2.2 million protective suits, 1.1 million N95 respirators, and half a million face shields.



Dr Ho also said procuring new stocks is getting more difficult.



"We face many limitations – some countries have already declared these items a strategic commodity, so there are export controls. This has added to our challenges in producing these items," she said.



She said they have speeded up and expanded their procurement scope, and appealed to colleagues to be careful about how they use the equipment to in order to conserve supplies.



Meanwhile, the Hospital Authority also stressed that it will only open designated clinics around the city if there's a wider outbreak of Covid-19, and there is no timetable for setting them up.



Dr Ho urged people to understand how the clinics would be used in the fight against the disease.



"I want to emphasise again, that the setting up of designated clinics is to facilitate those people with minor symptoms, so that they don't need to travel a long way to the A&E, and to decrease the risk of cross-infection," she said.



"We understand that civilians have a lot of worries, we will continue to communicate with them and different stakeholders to understand their concerns."