Hong Kong's first children's hospital will be a public-private venture in which private doctors will be allowed to treat patients under a regulated structure of fees and charges.
Medical academics will also have a role in the running of the 468-bed Centre of Excellence in Paediatrics, which is to offer a child-friendly environment with rest areas for families, Sandra Lee Suk-yee, permanent secretary for food and health, said.
The centre will be built on a site of 22,300 square metres in the Kai Tai development area and is expected to be operating by 2016.
The government says the new model, which was first proposed in the 2007 policy address, will put the advanced treatment of complicated diseases, professional exchanges, and research and teaching all under one roof.
Difficult areas the new hospital will target include cancer, neurosurgery and rare congenital or developmental diseases.
Lee said that while the centre would be a public hospital under the Hospital Authority, its operations would be overseen by a board of representatives from the authority, private doctors, the two medical schools, related non-governmental organisations and patients' groups. 'This centre is very new to Hong Kong,' Lee said. 'The governance model has yet to be worked out. We cannot use the traditional way of doing things.'
