Health chief least popular minister after drug blunders
Confidence in the health chief has dropped after a series of medical blunders involving substandard drugs produced locally as a result of slack government monitoring, a survey has found.
But the popularity ratings of the chief executive and financial secretary improved, the worsening economy and criticism of the government's failure to help notwithstanding.
Confidence in Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok fell 6 percentage points to 32 per cent, according to the survey of 1,001 respondents conducted by the University of Hong Kong last week. Dr Chow's rating in the previous survey, early last month, was 38 per cent.
Those who expressed no confidence in him rose from 35 per cent to 40 per cent - making him the least popular minister among the ruling team. Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam Sui-lung is next on 31 per cent.
The latest survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 to 4 percentage points.
The performances of Dr Chow and Mr Lam could be classified as 'mediocre', said Robert Chung Ting-yiu, director of the university's public opinion programme. He pointed to recent developments as the reasons for their ratings.
The timing of the latest poll coincided with the series of medical blunders, in which Dr Chow had admitted 'the whole government should be held accountable, especially my bureau' for failing to supervise drug production.
The blunders included illegal packaging and pharmaceutical producers fabricating drug-expiration dates. Fungus-tainted drugs dispensed by public hospitals have also been linked to the deaths of six cancer patients.
But while the health chief received the thumbs down, Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah saw improved ratings despite coming under heavy criticism for failing to address the economic downturn.
The chief executive's popularity rating was 54 points out of 100, compared with 52.4 last month. The vote of confidence towards him also rose by 3 percentage points to 47 per cent - the highest since November.
The financial chief's popularity rating rose by 1.9 points to 51 per cent, while the vote of confidence in him jumped by 5 percentage points to 40 per cent. The popularity ratings have a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 points. The support ratings have a margin of error of 3 per cent.
