'Hospitals Can't Beat Social Media For Speed Of News'

Health Secretary Lo Chung-mau on Friday said it was undesirable how the public was informed about recent mishaps at public hospitals, and there were protracted delays in the reporting of some issues.

At a Legislative Council panel, lawmaker Rebecca Chan criticised the Hospital Authority (HA) for confirming incidents of falling objects only after they had already been made public on social media.

The health chief said some issues could have been reported sooner, but it's difficult for authorities to match the speed of social media when it comes to disseminating information.

"You do understand that social media work very quickly. Sometimes news could spread much faster than the media. Within a matter of hours, pictures of such incidents were already found on social media," he told lawmakers.

"But for the HA, before they make any public announcements, they must get hold of all the relevant data first."

The authority earlier announced it would conduct checks at all public hospitals over the next month, and form a committee to review the maintenance of medical equipment and facilities.

Medical sector lawmaker David Lam, who's part of the committee, said he expects the body to look into details of the current maintenance protocols.

"We have to check if there is a necessity for us to impose a third-party inspection of the maintenance work, which means we may have to do quality control for the maintenance firm. We also have to consider [whether we should] set an expiry date for medical equipment that has been in use for a certain period of time," he told RTHK.

Meanwhile, Tuen Mun Hospital reported that parts of a false ceiling in an office had fallen down, but no one was injured.