Hospital Stats Don't Fully Reflect Reality: HA

The Hospital Authority admitted on Sunday that the statistics it's been giving out on occupancy rates at public hospitals may not reflect the actual situation, after coming under fire from critics who say their figures are misleading.

The authority says it'll consider how to give better information in future.

Figures issued on Sunday indicate that 95 percent of all beds in public hospitals were occupied as of Saturday night – down 3 percent from the previous day.

But critics like legislator Joseph Lee, who represents the Health Services sector, point out that these figures are from midnight, when daytime figures would be more accurate.

Another problem is that it’s not always clear what 100 percent refers to.

A committee member of the Hong Kong Public Doctors' Association, Arisina Ma, explains that the figure often includes temporary, extra beds set up in corridors especially to deal with the surge in patient numbers during the winter flu season.

This means the a ward that is statistically 100 percent full may actually be well over-capacity, Ma said.

In response, the Hospital Authority admitted that its figures may not fully reflect the situation of various wards at different hospitals, or the workload of frontline staff.

Many public doctors and nurses have been complaining of being overworked, with some staging a rare protest last month to demand more be done to ease the situation.