The Hospital Authority yesterday admitted it had been so overwhelmed by the number of complaints in the first quarter of this year that it has been struggling to cope.
Under the performance benchmark, the authority's public complaints committee aims to reply to a complaint within three months, but the committee has been unable to meet this target, said public complaints committee chairwoman Eliza Chan Ching-ha. 'It is a newly implemented system,' she said. 'We still need some time to implement it smoothly.' In the first quarter of the year, the secretary of the committee received 535 inquiries and 223 complaints. Most complaints, 17, were about medical services, followed by staff attitudes and administration.
Last year, the secretary received 2,333 inquiries and 821 complaints. Separately, public hospitals received 1,705 complaints in 1999 and 1,975 in 1998.
Ms Chan denied the public was abusing the Hospital Authority's complaints channel. She said the committee wanted to improve its efficiency in handling complaints.
