Bad news for patients

THE people of Kwun Tong, Sai Kung and Tseung Kwan O received some bad news on May 17 - the formal announcement by the Hospital Authority (HA) of the hospital clustering in the territory.

For many years people in the area have been served by the United Christian Hospital which does not have enough beds to serve them. With virtually no outside rehabilitation facilities, patients have to stay in UCH until they are discharged.

With the slow turnover of beds, patients who need attention sometimes have to go to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Relatives have to travel for hours from Sai Kung to Yau Ma Tei to visit them. The patients themselves have to tolerate long travel times to receive follow-up treatment as well.

In the early days of the Hospital Authority, it announced the patient-oriented initiative of ''improving access to services''. The people waited. And now they get this bad news.

From the figures given by HA, the QEH cluster has 6.43 beds per 1,000 population. The Kwong Wah Hospital cluster has 5.40/1,000. The Kwun Tong population has a meager 1.53/1,000, not even one quarter of that of the QEH cluster.

Is this an improvement to the access of services to the Kwun Tong population? Furthermore, the population of these two regions will drop, while that of Sai Kung will increase. Even if the UCH building extension is ready by 1995, the extra 400 beds will not be enough to cope.