Q Should Prince of Wales Hospital be rebuilt or refurbished?
As a frontline doctor working at the Prince of Wales Hospital, I read with interest your article '$4b hospital rebuild plan under fire', published on Friday.
Your article suggests that rebuilding the hospital may be a costly and unnecessary undertaking, given that the buildings are 'only 20-years-old'.
Unfortunately, the reporter appears to have overlooked a very important point: a hospital is not just the buildings it is located in. A modern hospital must provide a comfortable, clean and roomy environment for patient care.
Good internal communications and transport routes allowing rapid access to all wards and departments are essential for the efficient management of patients' needs, which may involve care and treatment in disparate parts of the hospital.
The hospital must also provide modern laboratory, research and education facilities and services as vital ancillaries to medical practice. Just as the practice of medicine itself is constantly improving, so too are the requirements that doctors and patients expect from their hospital. Put simply, Prince of Wales is increasingly being recognised as an obsolete design.
Over the years, the population of Sha Tin and the New Territories has grown considerably, meaning that the hospital must cater for more patients than it may have originally been designed for.
