Man arrested over indecent assault at Hong Kong public hospital
Both suspect and alleged victim were psychiatric patients at Chai Wan hospital
Police arrested a mentally disabled man on Tuesday on suspicion of indecently assaulting an 18-year-old man at a public hospital in Hong Kong.
The suspected indecent assault – the fourth such reported case in a public hospital this year – happened at Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital in Chai Wan where the suspect, 44, and the victim were mental patients on the same ward.
Hospital workers called police shortly after 7am on Tuesday, reporting the suspected assault, according to a force spokesman.
A police source said the victim claimed the suspect molested him when he was in bed at about 6am that day.
After officers arrived at the scene, they arrested the suspect for indecent assault. By Tuesday afternoon, he was being held for questioning and had not been charged.
It is not the first case of indecent assault at the city’s hospitals this year.
On January 7, police were called with a report that a 17-year-old boy had been indecently assaulted by four other mental patients at Kowloon Hospital in Kowloon City.
On January 16, police arrested a 42-year-old man for indecently assaulting a 13-year-old boy at United Christian Hospital in Kwun Tong.
And on February 13, police arrested a mentally disabled man, 69, for indecently assaulting a 17-year-old boy also at Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital in Chai Wan.
After the two suspected indecent assaults were revealed in January, the Hospital Authority pledged to review operations at psychiatric wards.
The authority plans to assemble a committee, including overseas experts, to look at procedures and manpower arrangements at public psychiatric wards.
An authority spokesman said in January that facilities for monitoring patients in psychiatric wards would be immediately reviewed, and more CCTV installed.
