A senior Hospital Authority official said he did not know a principal Sars ward at the Prince of Wales Hospital had been reopened three days after it was closed during the early days of last year's outbreak.
Ko Wing-man, the authority's director of professional services and public affairs, told a Legislative Council inquiry yesterday that he did not know ward 8A had been reopened on the evening of March 13.
Ward 8A - where more than 10 medical staff fell ill during the outbreak - had been closed on March 10 after medical personnel began to fall ill with what would later be identified as Sars. A patient admitted to the ward on March 15 turned out to be the index patient for the Amoy Gardens outbreak. He had been given routine dialysis treatment and was discharged four days later. After leaving hospital, he stayed at his brother's flat in Amoy Gardens and was believed to have spread the virus there.
Before the crisis ended, the estate had 329 infections and 42 deaths.
Dr Ko was criticised by legislators who said he had failed to properly safeguard public hospitals from Sars.
Dr Ko said: 'I [was] working at the head office and it is impossible for me to know every detail in all public hospitals. If I had had one single ideal measure to completely prevent infection at the time of the outbreak, I would have done it.'