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May Chan

Patients yesterday accused the Prince of Wales Hospital of keeping them in the dark about the viral outbreak and said they would have kept away if they had known how serious it was.

Fifty staff at the hospital had last night been struck down by the flu-like illness, 11 of them suffering atypical pneumonia.

All staff, patients and visitors to wards 8A and 8B were yesterday required to wear masks as the hospital battled to contain the outbreak.

Visitor Connie Law Sau-kuen claimed that the hospital had been incompetent in dealing with the crisis as she visited her 76-year-old grandmother in one of the affected wards.

'My grandmother was admitted to ward 8 on Tuesday night after 9pm because of her diabetes - long after the hospital spokesman had released the news on flu - only to be ordered to leave this morning, like all other patients there,' said Ms Law. 'If they think the threat of flu is great, they should not have admitted my grandmother.

'She could have been infected given her fragile state, and her health could be aggravated by the extra travel involved.'

Leung Sum, an 86-year-old who was discharged from ward 8 yesterday morning, said staff would not tell him why he needed to be masked.

'They just said it was for our protection. [Ward 8A patients] would never have known about the threat if we had not read the newspaper,' he said.

Patients on other floors were worried that the virus could spread through the air-conditioning system.

'We [patients with kidney problems] are all worried. We have no choice but to come back there everyday because it is difficult to transfer out files to other hospitals, and most of us have been seeing the same doctor for years,' said one 45-year-old patient. 'The hospital is not taking good care of us. It should have given us masks.'

Patients at the Kwong Wah Hospital also said they should have been informed that pneumonia cases had been admitted there.

Besides a staff member from Prince of Wales Hospital, Kwong Wah Hospital also admitted several patients who had developed pneumonia symptoms to its intensive care unit.

These patients were the family of a Chinese professor who had died earlier this month in the hospital of pneumonia.

'I would not have gone there if I had known because the virus is so fierce and it's dangerous,' said Ms Chan, a patient admitted to Kwong Wah Hospital yesterday.

'No wonder all the frontier medical workers here are wearing masks these days.

'I hope they can offer us masks also and inform the public about that - it is the least they can do.'



Hospitals are keeping us in the dark over outbreak, say worried patients