Plans In Place To Reactivate Covid-only Hospitals: HA

The Hospital Authority said on Saturday it may turn individual hospitals into Covid-19 treatment facilities again if the number of cases continues to rise.

A top HA official, Lau Ka-kin, told an RTHK programme that if, for example, half of a hospital's patients are Covid-related, it could be re-designated as a Covid facility.

However, he stressed that was not a "hard figure" and that any decisions would also depend on bed usage at other hospitals.

Lau said the number of Covid patients being admitted to hospitals remains stable, and that the authority has sufficient beds and manpower to handle the situation.

He also defended its plan to bring in senior mainland doctors from the Greater Bay Area in the second half of this year as part of efforts to tackle a brain drain.

Lau described the exchange programme as a "win-win-win" solution that can benefit the people, Hong Kong and mainland doctors.

But a lay member of the Medical Council, Lam Chi-yau, said that if non-locally trained doctors only speak Mandarin or English, this may lead to misdiagnosis.

Speaking on the same programme, Lam also pointed out that Hong Kong doctors use English to write patients' medical records, while documents across the border are mainly written in Chinese. He said mainland doctors would need to get used to Hong Kong's system.

Medical sector legislator David Lam dismissed these concerns, saying most doctors in the Greater Bay Area speak Cantonese.

He also alleged that the Medical Council and its special registration committee discriminate against the Chinese language, questioning why they only welcome instructors who teach in English and doctors who use English to write medical records.