I refer to the report headlined 'Doctor forced to use old drugs on malaria victim' (South China Morning Post, September 25) and would like to give some additional information to enable your readers to better understand the current agreed arrangements between public and private hospitals on supply of emergency drugs.
A well-established system has been in place since 1997 to ensure private hospitals can be provided with an emergency supply of rarely-used drugs. A list of emergency drugs stocked by public hospitals is made available to the pharmacists in-charge of private hospitals.
Private hospitals can ask for rare drugs for emergency use by contacting the Hospital Authority's on-call pharmacist, who will then locate the public hospital with a stock of the drugs which is nearest to the private hospital. Arrangements are made for them to be collected as soon as possible.
Dr BEATRICE CHENG
Executive Manager
(Professional Services)
