THE Secretary of Health, Mrs Elizabeth Wong, should be forgiven her recent blunder in openly exposing her lack of knowledge of the widespread, and in some cases, critical shortage of nursing staff in most hospitals. At the very least, this episode has the positive result of revealing the following: The Government only sees and and listens through the chief executive of the Hospital Authority and has no direct contact or first-hand knowledge of the scope and seriousness of many problems that have long been undermining the interests of the hospital staff, the patients and public at large. The chief and senior executives of the Hospital Authority only fed favourable information and cliched replies to the central government in order to justify their existence and sideline their incompetence. The Hospital Authority urgently needs more censure from not only the Government but also the general public in order to salvage its credibility. More representation from the medical and nursing professions as well as genuinely caring members of the public (not politicians, please) and open meetings of its management committee are immediately needed on the Hospital Authority to scrutinise its workand safeguard the interests of the public. I read from other reports that Mrs Wong was fuming over some lies she was told about the nursing staff situation. Instead of putting the blame entirely on someone else, I wonder if she would also be honest enough to acknowledge the observations above and tell us what actions she will take to ensure that the Hospital Authority is doing the right work and that the Government will be kept abreast of basic problems in the hospitals. FRANCIS LEUNG Ho Man Tin
