Health authorities will allow patients to compare waiting times for cataract operations at a dozen public hospitals - and to choose one with the shortest queue. It will be the first time patients have had access to such information. Officials say other procedures will follow suit to enhance transparency and efficiency. 'It is the right thing to do. Society expects higher transparency,' said Dr Luk Che-chung, chief executive of hospitals in Hong Kong West, including Queen Mary Hospital, the University of Hong Kong's teaching hospital and one of the city's most popular public hospitals. 'Hospital management has a responsibility to explain to the public why they have to wait so long.' Waiting times for cataract operations at individual public hospitals - currently averaging 27 months - will be made public from early next year. A new website will release the information so patients can choose the one with the shortest queue. The website will eventually provide 'real-time' waiting periods for first appointments at public specialist outpatient clinics. The Hospital Authority will also allow patients to have operations at a hospital outside their residential districts. But an eye doctor said some elderly patients would prefer to stay in their districts for treatment, even though they know the waiting time may be longer. Public hospitals and clinics have been under pressure to cut waiting times amid repeated criticism that long queues have deprived patients of timely medical care. The authority recently set up two cataract centres, and subsidised patients to have cataract operations at private hospitals. As a result, the average waiting time has been cut from five years to 27 months. Waiting times for other procedures with the longest queues such as joint replacements and surgery for benign prostatic hypertrophy - or enlargement of the prostate gland - will be posted in the next phase of the programme. At present, such prostate patients have to wait more than six years for an operation. A person familiar with the new system said making the information public would set a service benchmark for public hospitals. 'Hospitals with exceptionally long queues have to give an explanation,' the person said. 'The authority is not striking blindly to achieve shorter queues, it's also seeking good quality. It has to examine the reasons behind the long waits at individual hospitals and do something to help them ... For example, some hospitals have to spend more time training doctors or they have inadequate operating theatres; the authority will consider all those factors.' Many public hospitals, especially the two popular teaching ones, do not take patients from other districts for some of their services. 'There's a drawback with the old funding system because it essentially rewards the hospitals with longer waiting times by giving them extra money to clear the queues,' the person said. 'The new funding system is better in the sense that it rewards those that are working well and have cut wait times. If they can shorten waiting time, more patients will go there and they'll get more funding.' Funding for hospitals has been largely based on the population size and structure in their catchment areas, so they are reluctant to take patients from other districts. But the new pay-for-performance funding system takes into account the workload of individual hospitals. However, Dr Ernie Lo Chi-fung, past president of the Frontline Doctors' Union, said the programme had only 'limited benefits' for patients. 'Increasing transparency is good, but many elderly patients prefer to stay in their own districts for medical care.'
