A LACK of hospital emergency services has led to at least one death and is putting the lives of other patients at risk, according to the Hongkong Democratic Foundation.
The group said hospitals were turning patients away because they did not have emergency facilities.
Foundation chairman Dr Patrick Shiu Kin-ying said a recent case in which a woman died when a hospital refused to treat her was not isolated.
Dr Shiu said the woman, who was in her 50s' was turned away by the Buddhist Hospital last month because it did not have an accident and emergency department.
He said nurses refused to look at the woman who had collapsed in the street and was brought to the Wong Tai Sin hospital by a passer-by.
They also refused to telephone for an ambulance or to allow the woman's ''good Samaritan'' to use the telephone himself, Dr Shiu said.