Critic wrong on private surgery, say professors

HKU keeps smaller share of patient fees than Chinese University, say trio

Medical professors at the University of Hong Kong yesterday reiterated its claim a legislator had misinterpreted its income from treating private patients at Queen Mary Hospital.

On Wednesday medical-sector lawmaker Kwok Ka-ki said government figures showed HKU earned HK$28.2 million from in-patient services for private patients between April 2005 and March last year - HK$7.8 million more than Chinese University, yet HKU had carried out three times more operations.

Two weeks ago, Dr Kwok said the HKU faculty earned HK$34.8 million in 2002-03 from 25,073 specialist attendances at Queen Mary Hospital - the university's teaching hospital - compared with HK$31.5 million for Chinese University's school from just 2,528 attendances at Prince of Wales Hospital.

The professors said Dr Kwok should do his homework. They said HKU earned less from private patients because it paid a bigger share of their fees to the Hospital Authority.

They said that while HKU staff performed most of their surgery at Queen Mary, staff at Chinese University carried out just 18 per cent of procedures on private patients at its teaching hospital, Prince of Wales in Sha Tin.

The response came from acting dean of medicine Raymond Liang Hin-suen, assistant dean Lo Chung-mau and faculty board chairman and former dean Chow Shew-ping.