Doctors Overwhelmed By Home Quarantine Surge

The chairman of the Government Doctors Association said on Thursday that just 12 public doctors are available at any one time to cope with queries from 32,000 people who are undergoing compulsory home quarantine.

Joyce Lee said the number of people arriving in Hong Kong and being ordered to stay home for 14 days is swelling by thousands every day, leaving the limited number of doctors on call struggling to cope.

"Our home quarantine team is not able to cater for such a large number of quarantine needs, because we only have a dozen colleagues working on shift at any one time," she told RTHK's Janice Wong.

"A few doctors and nurses are catering to 32,000 people, and the number is growing by thousands per day. So at any one point in the shift, our colleagues could have 2,000 calls waiting for them to answer. They are completely unable to answer all the calls."

Lee's comments came a day after some 280 Hong Kong residents who were evacuated from virus-hit Hubei province were ordered to self-quarantine. More than 200 more were expected to arrive later on Thursday.

She said people returning from Hubei should be sent to quarantine centres or, at least, subjected to "strict" home quarantine.