Coronavirus: Hong Kong drawing up plans to pull private hospitals into Covid-19 fight, with public facilities overwhelmed by fifth wave

Name: Omicron spreads rapidly through Hong Kong care homes as city tops global Covid death rate
Uploaded: 2022-03-07T06:07:53.000Z
Duration: 4 min 13 s
Description: Omicron spreads rapidly through Hong Kong care homes as city tops global Covid death rate

Vice-Premier Han Zheng quoted by Hong Kong deputies to the National People’s Congress as saying city must work on weaknesses in its fight against coronavirus

Lawmakers and analysts say authorities did not make any serious effort earlier to tap resources of private hospitals, only piling pressure on sector now

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Health workers at the Penny’s Bay quarantine camp in Lantau Island. Photo: Sam Tsang

Natalie Wong,Tony CheungandGary Cheung

Published: 2:07pm, 7 Mar 2022Updated: 11:32pm, 7 Mar 2022

The Hong Kong government is drawing up plans to require private hospitals to provide beds and designated clinics for coronavirus patients in an arrangement similar to asking hotels to offer quarantine facilities, as a state leader again questioned the private sector’s reported reluctance to do more.

The city’s senior officials have been meeting heads of private hospitals, the Post has learned, to press for more support to ease the burden on a public health care system pushed to the brink trying to cope with the fifth wave of Covid-19 infections.

All 13 private hospitals in Hong Kong do not admit walk-ins who have tested positive for Covid-19, according to a Post survey on Monday, and at least three said they did not provide outpatient treatment for such patients or their close contacts, as well as for non-coronavirus patients with respiratory symptoms.

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Omicron spreads rapidly through Hong Kong care homes as city tops global Covid death rate

A source involved in the discussions said the administration had been working on plans to secure the private sector’s support in three areas – to take over more non-Covid patients, to provide beds and to designate clinics for those who tested positive.

“Like how [Carrie] Lam met with the hotel sector to enlist support for the provision of quarantine rooms, now it’s the private hospitals’ turn,” the source said, referring to the city leader’s high-level meeting with hotel owners in mid-February in which she expressed hope that at least 10,000 rooms could be made available for isolation purposes.

On Monday, Hong Kong logged 25,150 new infections with a new high of 161 deaths. A much-delayed government platform for Covid-19 patients to declare their positive rapid antigen tests went live at 6pm, with more than 100,000 people joining the online queue within an hour of its launch, although by 11pm the line had cleared.

With mainland experts over the weekend weighing in on the timing of a coming mass testing drive, a source from across the border said on Monday Beijing had no “hard and fast” rule on when and how the exercise should be conducted.