HK Officials Defend Restraining Coronavirus Babies

Hong Kong health authorities have defended the practice of physically restraining some babies and children to beds in coronavirus isolation wards after criticism built over the treatment of families under the city's strict anti-virus measures.

There has been growing pushback against the government's pandemic quarantine and testing rules in recent weeks after an outbreak hit neighbourhoods favoured by wealthier white-collar locals and foreigners.

Social media groups have been filled with comments by families taken to isolation wards or mandatory quarantine camps.

Their complaints include allegations that some parents have been separated from their children, ordered not to breastfeed babies and that some infants have even been tied to beds to stop them moving around.

The allegations have led to a series of statements this week from health authorities defending their policies, including over the use of restraints.

"Generally speaking, the hospital will only consider the application of physical restraint on paediatric patients for the safety and well-being of the patient," the Hospital Authority said in a statement late Wednesday.

"Appropriate and prior consent will be sought from the parents or guardians," it added.

The Hospital Authority added parents who test negative would usually be allowed to accompany infected children on isolation wards if there is space.

In recent days, the consulates of Switzerland, Britain and the United States have all expressed concerns over how Hong Kong's tough anti-virus measures were impacting families, including concerns that parents had about being separated from children.

Hong Kong's treatment of mothers during the pandemic has previously come under scrutiny.

Last year, a group of expecting parents fought an ultimately successful campaign to allow birth partners into the delivery room after they were banned during a spike in coronavirus cases.

World Health Organisation guidelines recommend birth partners be present, even during the pandemic, and that infected mothers continue breastfeeding their babies.

While authorities relented on birth partners, Hong Kong continues to tell mothers not to breastfeed on isolation wards.

"This is what we call the tyranny of the urgent – there is so much pressure to act quickly and aggressively in the context of public health events that other factors tend to get sidelined," Karen Grepin, a health policy expert at the University of Hong Kong who is currently studying how the pandemic impacts different genders, said.

"Responding to a pandemic is more of a marathon than a sprint and thus we need to find ways of balancing the very important public health rationale of interventions with their gendered, economic, and social effects," she added. (AFP)