Dental school urged to 'come clean' on blunders

The city's dental teaching hospital has been urged to "come clean" and disclose its blunders after it was revealed that contaminated water was being used to rinse patients' mouths.

Both the Prince Philip Dental Hospital in Sai Ying Pun and government officials are being pushed to give a full account of the incident exposed by the South China Morning Post in August in which water used to rinse patients' mouths was "heavily contaminated" with bacteria from mid-February to mid-June.

The call for a reporting system comes a month after the hospital said it had set up a task force to investigate the "causes and issues" of the incident. The investigation is expected to take two months

The probe will look into why water being supplied to dental units through contaminated lines was not immediately halted and why water samples were not sent to an accredited lab for analysis.

An internal report on the chronology of the incident at the time said the clinic had been too busy to disinfect them as frequently as it should have.

"The hospital and the government officials must come clean and disclose all the details," said Central and Western district councillor Wong Kin-shing. "The hospital has a lot of elderly patients. It should also set up a reporting mechanism so that incidents are reported to the council on a regular basis."

Wong said he will propose at next Thursday's district council meeting that the dental hospital reports to the Hospital Authority's Hong Kong west grouping, which oversees all hospitals in Central and Western district.