Hospitals To Boost Isolation Bed Capacity

The Hospital Authority is aiming to increase its capacity to take in Covid-19 cases by adding some beds and converting a few normal wards into "second-tier isolation" ones in the coming weeks.

This would make available an additional 400 beds for coronavirus patients, he said.

The authority's chief executive, Tony Ko, said that more resources could be spared by grouping together patients with mild symptoms instead of having one or two to a room.

He told RTHK's Millennium programme on Monday that the authority is preparing to refurbish some of their existing wards and turn them into "second-tier isolation wards" for groups of patients in recovery.

Speaking after the programme, Ko said the medical treatment in these wards would be the same.

"The treatment they're going to receive and the observation, all the things are the same standard, so there's no need to worry about that," he said.

Ko also said that recovering patients could be moved to quarantine centres or their homes, as long as there's little risk of transmission.

"In some countries and areas we notice a rise in number of cases is in an exponential manner," he said. "We don't think we are at this moment we haven't reached the stage that we need to arrange community care for some of our patients."

"But we must prepare for different possibilities in case – we hope that it will never happen – there is a very quick or sharp increases in the number of cases," he said.

He said what some of the patients might need is really isolation rather than medical care.

"We observe in many overseas countries that after the initial phase of treatment, or for some patients [whose] symptoms are so mild, they actually do not need that much medical care."