ExclusiveCoronavirus: lessons of pandemic have officials rethinking plans for Hong Kong’s public hospitals, authority chairman says

More isolation beds and more land to hold them among key concerns going forward, Hospital Authority chief tells the Post

‘We cannot go back to the time when [waiting areas of] outpatient clinics were filled with patients,’ Fan says

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In an exclusive interview, Hospital Authority chairman Henry Fan discussed the ways in which the Covid-19 crisis had informed future planning for Hong Kong’s public hospitals. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

Published: 9:00am, 1 May 2020Updated: 3:14pm, 20 May 2020

The coronavirus has forced Hong Kong to overhaul its decades-long development plan for the city’s public hospitals, the Hospital Authority chief has revealed, with challenges faced since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic driving a necessarily fresh approach.

Hong Kong has seen no infections over the past five days – from a peak of 65 on March 27 – and Friday marks the 100th day since the city’s first two cases were confirmed on January 23.

Reflecting on how the battle with the deadly disease has unfolded since then, authority chairman Henry Fan Hung-ling told the Post that business-as-usual planning for both hardware needs, and management methods at the city’s hospitals, needed a rethink.

The Covid-19 pandemic has put the need for more isolation wards front and centre for the Hospital Authority. Photo: Sam Tsang

“We might need bigger plots of land to build new hospitals,” Fan said. “We will need more isolation beds. Based on overseas experience, the some 1,200 isolation beds [in public hospitals] could be filled up in one day,” he said.

Singapore recorded more than 1,400 new cases in that time frame.

“With the needs of social distancing, how we place beds now might not meet such needs and more space would be needed between beds,” Fan added.

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100 days of Covid-19

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