New Children's Hospital will centralise state-of-the-art care

A children's hospital is the dream of several generations of Hong Kong paediatricians.

With the high standard of health services for children currently provided by the Health Department, Hospital Authority and the private sector, some might ask: why do we need a children's hospital?

The HK$13 billion Hong Kong Children's Hospital, which will start operating in 2018, is not a replacement for existing paediatric departments in the city's regional hospitals. The future child health service will adopt the principle of centralising where necessary to improve an outcome, and localising where possible to improve access.

Currently some of the uncommon diseases are centralised in a few public hospitals, such as five child cancer units, three paediatric surgical teams, one cardiac surgery and one chronic kidney dialysis unit for children. Since the number of uncommon disease cases is small - there are about 180 new cases of childhood cancer per year - it is difficult to build up specialised facilities and expertise with caseloads scattered among different hospitals. These uncommon diseases quite often require a multidisciplinary team approach. With specialists of different disciplines housed in the same hospital, patients can receive state-of-the-art treatment without the need to travel around different hospitals.

Centralisation of caseloads also supports research, with the two medical schools playing an important role. If clinical research can be completed faster with sufficient caseloads, doctors may apply new treatment methods earlier to help children with serious illnesses.

Another major role of the Children's Hospital is to educate and train the next generation of health care workers in paediatric and child-related specialties. The trainees can acquire experience more quickly with large caseloads and receive training from a team of specialist experts in these diseases.