Kowloon East hospitals vow to cut waiting time
Public hospitals in Kowloon East have pledged to cut the waiting time for cataract operations by half, and enhance oncology and obstetric services, after receiving extra resources.
The South China Morning Post reported in October that patients in Kwun Tong and Tseung Kwan O were the biggest losers from imbalanced resource allocation among the seven clusters of public hospitals. The Kowloon East cluster - which runs the United Christian, Tseung Kwan O and Haven of Hope hospitals - not only has relatively fewer beds and doctors, but patients also face much longer waits for some key services. Patients in the cluster had been told they would have to wait 10 years for a cataract operation.
The Hospital Authority ordered the cluster to cut the waiting time. Cluster chief executive Luk Che-chung said it would double the number of cataract operations this year, to 2,000. It means that the average waiting time for the operation would be cut from the average four to five years to within three years.
The cluster has seen its budget increase by 2.7 per cent or HK$80 million this financial year, up from HK$3 billion in 2008-09.
Dr Luk said that with the extra resources, the cluster could increase eye doctors from 12 to 14. More nurses and surgery sessions would also be deployed for clearing the backlog of cataract cases. The Tseung Kwan O hospital will be developed as an eye centre for the cluster.
'Our direction this year is not to open new services but to use the extra resources on several key pressure points, including cataracts, cancer services, obstetrics and mental care,' Dr Luk said.
Frontline Doctors Union chairman Ernie Lo Chi-fung, an eye doctor in the Kowloon East Cluster, welcomed the initiative to cut the waiting time for cataract operations. Dr Lo said patients who received cataract operations at United Christian Hospital recently had waited for four years. 'It shows that the cluster management is willing to take action to deal with the pressing issue of long waiting times for cataracts,' he said.
To meet the growing demand for obstetric services, especially among the young population in Tseung Kwan O, Tseung Kwan O Hospital will launch pre-natal and post-natal care for mothers. But mothers from the district will still have to travel to United Christian Hospital in Kwun Tong for deliveries before Tseung Kwan O Hospital opens its own maternity ward by 2013.
The cluster will also enhance services for cancer patients. Kowloon East cancer patients currently have to travel to Kowloon's Queen Elizabeth Hospital for oncology consultations. 'Starting from this year, Queen Elizabeth Hospital doctors will come to United Christian Hospital to see the Kowloon East cancer patients,' Dr Luk said. 'Some of our patients can have the chemotherapy at United Christian Hospital if it is safe to do so.' United Christian Hospital is working on a redevelopment plan which will see a new oncology - meaning tumour-related - centre set up by 2018.
The hospital would also open more psychiatric beds.
Eye on the future
The number of years patients in Kowloon East were told they would have to wait to have cataract surgery, before the Hospital Authority intervened: 10
