"Hospital Service Cuts Would Affect Hundreds"

A patients' concern group said on Thursday that any move by the Hospital Authority (HA) to reduce non-emergency services to cope with a surge in Covid patients could affect hundreds of people each day.

The authority warned at a regular briefing on Tuesday that, with 1,000 patients in hospital with Covid already and about 3,000 cases reported each day, it would have to suspend or postpone some non-urgent services.

Speaking on RTHK's Hong Kong Today programme on Thursday, Alex Lam from the group Hong Kong Patients' Voices said he hoped the authorities would reduce services gradually rather than stopping them overnight. He also called for the reopening of some dedicated facilities for Covid patients.

"Well, the figure of 3,000 daily is really a concern, because even two years ago we didn't have this figure and we suspended most of the services in the HA," he told RTHK's Ben Tse.

"So now we have this number of people admitted to hospital, we have to think about whether we should reopen certain designated places for putting these people for receiving this service, including those near the border, in Tsing Yi or other places, Lantau, say, for example, to hold these cases."

Speaking on Tuesday, Hospital Authority chief manager Sara Ho said officials had started to adjust the number of elective surgeries carried out, such as endoscopy services, elective cardiac interventions and some elective surgeries for benign tumours.

She said this was required to mobilise beds and manpower for an expected upsurge in Covid patients.

Hong Kong reported 3,154 new Covid infections on Wednesday, including 211 imported cases.