Legco will pay for 300,000 masks a day and 800 extra medics
More than 800 extra medical professionals and support staff are to be employed by the government to tackle the outbreak under a $200 million emergency package approved by the Legislative Council yesterday.
The government also said it would distribute more than 300,000 face masks to frontline medical staff and visitors to public hospitals every day, at a cost of $370,000 per day, in order to prevent the spread of the deadly virus.
At a special meeting of the Legco finance committee, some lawmakers called for government holiday camps and unsold Home Ownership Scheme flats to be used as quarantine camps to house people who have had close contact with patients but have not yet developed the pneumonia symptoms.
Under the emergency package, which was unanimously approved, the government plans to employ 120 doctors, 400 registered nurses and 360 health-care assistants at a monthly cost of $29 million to strengthen over-stretched staff in public hospitals. More doctors are expected to be drafted out of retirements and from other branches of the medical establishment.
The money will also be used to maintain the daily supply of more than 300,000 masks distributed in public hospitals, and extra resources will be pumped in to pay for medicine and tests for suspected victims of the illness.
A total of $25 million will be used to step up education in a publicity drive to raise awareness of the disease.
