The Legco inquiry will credit the chief executive for urging people to wear masks during the outbreak Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa is expected to come in for praise in the 400-page report of the Legislative Council Sars inquiry, due out this afternoon. Mr Tung, who chaired the Sars Steering Committee from March 25 last year, will be credited for urging people to wear masks, directing his ministers to close Amoy Gardens and schools, and invoking the quarantine ordinance. This could be the most contentious finding of the inquiry as Mr Tung had been the object of much public criticism amid the chaotic handling of the Sars outbreak last year, which killed 299 people out of 1,755 infected in Hong Kong. Five key players in his administration and the Hospital Authority, including Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food Yeoh Eng-kiong and former director of health Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun, will be blamed in the Legco report. The revelations came as Hong Kong doctors got a sneak preview of the findings in a letter, dated today, from panel member Lo Wing-lok, president of the Hong Kong Medical Association. Hospital Authority chairman Leong Che-hung said yesterday that he would take 'full responsibility' for the authority's actions. Dr Leong, as well as the authority's chief executive, William Ho Shiu-wei, director Ko Wing-man, and the chiefs of Princess Margaret and Prince of Wales hospitals, Lily Chiu Lei-lei and Ng Fong Hong, will also be criticised in the Legco Select Committee's report. Dr Yeoh was 'not alert enough' to have realised the extent of the atypical pneumonia outbreak in Guangzhou earlier last year. As the leader of the fight against Sars he 'was not quite capable'. His communication to the media and delivery of unclear messages will also be criticised. Dr Chan will be singled out for the delay in making Sars a notifiable disease and isolating Amoy Gardens Block E. Dr Lo's letter arrived at doctors' offices on Saturday. A copy seen by the South China Morning Post said one of the conclusions was that 'subjecting new patients to an undetermined and uncontrolled risk of contracting an unknown infectious disease by putting these patients into the hospital ward where such an outbreak is going on is 'less than prudent''. The letter also called on the government and the Hospital Authority not to 'waste public money in using their public relations machinery' to distract attention from the 'fully well-reasoned and justified criticisms' of ranking officials. Over the past week, top officials had been taking pre-emptive action to weaken the sting of the much-awaited report. Dr Leong said on RTHK's Letter to Hong Kong yesterday: 'Since the Hospital Authority board is an accountable statutory body and I am its chairman, I take full responsibility for the Hospital Authority, [and] more so during the Sars crisis as I was standing side by side every single day with the management team and the frontline [staff] during the very dark period.' Dr Leong said he believed that the authority at all levels had done its best and he insisted that 'no planning could have prepared the Hospital Authority for an outbreak of such a scale and severity'. Kwok Ka-ki, convenor of the Action Group on Medical Policy, criticised Dr Lo's release of a letter containing some of the report's findings as 'irresponsible'. He said that not only Dr Leong but other top Hospital Authority officials should take the blame. Dr Kwok has said he would be disappointed if Mr Tung remained unscathed because 'final responsibility' should rest with him. But doctor Paul Ko Yiu-shum, who closed his private clinic to volunteer at Princess Margaret during Sars, urged people to look at the report objectively, saying it would be unfair to use today's knowledge to criticise yesterday's situation. 'In applying medicine that had never been used before, doctors were not only betting on people's lives, but also putting their future and honour at stake. I am disappointed that there are many people discussing who should be held responsible and there have been so many investigation reports.'
