Why rebuilding is best option for Prince of Wales

I refer to the column headlined 'What ails the Prince of Wales?' (June 25), by Frank Ching.

The Prince of Wales Hospital (PWH), designed in the late 1970s, is a tertiary level acute hospital serving the population of New Territories East. The mode of hospital operation has undergone a lot of changes over the years. PWH's space is inadequate to meet service needs. The addition and alteration works in PWH over the years to meet those needs have resulted in related, or even the same services, being scattered over different locations in the hospital, hampering operational efficiency.

These problems could be resolved by building other extension blocks and upgrading current buildings. However, the structural frame of the buildings has imposed limitations on their potential to be upgraded to meet present-day standards and future demands. For example, the structural headroom of 3.5 metres is insufficient to allow for installation of service trunkings to support engineering services, information technology infrastructure and hospital operational systems, unless the hospital is to have undesirably low headroom.

Ever since it came into operation, PWH has been subject to extremely heavy use. The population it serves is double that of other tertiary acute hospitals like Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth and has been increasing at a much faster rate. Particularly heavy usage has accelerated the deterioration of finishes, fixtures and other installations and shortened their lifespan, and also made it difficult for the hospital to adhere to a regular maintenance schedule.

In operation now for 20 years, PWH is due for major refurbishment or redevelopment. (Other major acute hospitals have undergone major refurbishment after similar periods.) All major refurbishment programmes require service suspension and substantial decanting arrangements. With the increase in the population it serves, it is impossible to close down part of PWH for refurbishment. Suspension of service would also affect the teaching of the medical faculty of Chinese University. There would also be considerable environmental nuisance during refurbishment for the parts of the hospital still functioning. In our analysis, the option that would cause the least disruption would still require the suspension of service of 450-500 beds at any one time, and refurbishment would take an estimated 72 months.

By comparison, redevelopment would resolve the inherent problem of structural constraint, allow the hospital to continue to operate, generate much less environmental nuisance (as the new blocks would be built on sites outside the existing hospital) and not affect teaching. We hope this explains why redevelopment is considered a better option than refurbishment.

INGRID YEUNG, Principal Assistant Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food