Medical staff yesterday criticised lax security at Queen Elizabeth Hospital that allowed a patient to hide on the roof for three days after being declared missing. But they defended the hospital for allowing Stuart Joy, 40, to leave the ward at 1 am on Thursday in pyjamas, without money or clothes, after he was admitted for a psychotic illness. Mr Joy was found on Sunday morning, sleeping rough beside water tanks on the hospital roof. He seemed coherent but could not remember what had happened. He was discharged and boarded a flight back to his home in Wales yesterday. A family friend in Hong Kong said the man 'seemed okay' but very tired. Senior hospital manager Susanna Ko Yuk-ying said security would be stepped up, but not at the cost of patients' freedom. 'You have to balance the two sides of the coin - we have to have openness and freedom for patients,' she said. 'We can't keep them in a ward like in a prison. We have to allow them some mobility in the compound.' Police had been alerted, according to standard procedure, after Mr Joy disappeared for the second time, she said. Public Doctors' Association president and Kwong Wah Hospital chief of service Dr Yip Wai-chun said the circumstances should have sparked a special search. The hospital said a security guard had found Mr Joy during a routine inspection, but denied he could have been on the roof for three days. 'The mistake is: You should not allow people to get up to the roof,' Dr Yip said. 'That's really a security problem they should look into.' A Kwong Wah patient had drowned himself in a water tank on the hospital's roof some years ago, he said, and 'we learned from that'. Mr Joy's sister, Hannah Jones, who contacted police from Swansea, South Wales, said her brother had threatened to jump from a second-floor window before being admitted. 'I asked and asked and asked and asked the staff to restrain him,' she said. But Medical Association vice-president Dr So Kai-ming said a patient could be restrained only under special circumstances. 'He decided to leave, so he did not want the care. You have to treat someone as an adult,' he said. If Mr Joy had walked out of his ward and off the roof, 'then he would have been found dead', Dr So said. 'Probably you can say the hospital should be more careful with security and access to the roof,' he said. Last week, the hospital finalised proposals to introduce closed-circuit television in public areas. But Ms Ko said 'it's not for tracking patients going in and out'.
