CANCER patients may die while queueing up for treatment due to a severe shortage of therapeutic radiographers, a medical expert has warned.
A Hospital Authority paper obtained by the Sunday Morning Post showed that by July, public hospitals would lack 50 specialist radiographers or 35 per cent of the level required to maintain proper service.
Professor Constantine Metreweli, head of the Chinese University's Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Organ Imaging, said: ''This means we will not have enough people to operate the cancer treatment machine. Patients are going to die while waiting.'' The paper showed a staff shortage in the year ahead in anaesthesiology, pathology, psychiatry, nursing, and diagnostic radiology. It recommended overseas recruitment which the HA said would cost more.
Also, manpower projections for senior medical officers in radio-diagnosis showed ''a large number of vacancies'' would appear.
The paper says although the shortage of nurses has eased somewhat in the year ending March 1993, recruitment of overseas nurses should remain an option because of the planned commissioning of additional beds and other new services.
It suggested the recruitment be conducted for a period of one year, after which the need should be reviewed.
But Professor Metreweli last night warned of a drop in standards.