Editorial | Health crisis calls for use of all Hong Kong resources
- Makeshift hospital near border with mainland China will soon offer radiology services in attempt to cut Hong Kong waiting list
It was good to see authorities think outside the box with plans to make use of a makeshift hospital at one of the city’s disused fangcang or “square cabin” isolation camps. The largest of the nine makeshift Covid-19 treatment facilities quickly assembled during the pandemic will soon offer radiology services for as many as 7,000 patients a year.
Waiting times for scans at public hospitals will hopefully be reduced by the pilot scheme being set up at the Lok Ma Chau Loop near the mainland border.
Hospital Authority chairman Henry Fan Hung-ling says patients in the eastern New Territories will be able to use a free shuttle bus to reach the facility for diagnostic radiology scans including computerised axial tomography (CAT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Fan admitted that non-emergency cases handled by public hospitals often wait more than 10 months for imaging, which provides “tremendous help for early disease control”.
The new service may help shorten queues for patients across Hong Kong from July.
Built last April with Beijing’s help, the Lok Ma Chau Loop facility has never been used. It offers 11,000 beds in a quarantine bloc and an emergency hospital on 43.3 hectares of land.