Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ14: Medical consumables
Following is a question by the Hon Li Kwok-ying and a written reply by the
Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council
today (May 25):
Question :
It has been reported that in order to save expenditure, the Hospital Authority
(HA) has recently purchased medical consumables such as masks, syringes and
gloves, etc, of poor quality for use in public hospitals, adversely affecting
the efficiency of health care personnel and the quality of their service. In
this connection, will the Government inform this Council whether it knows:
(a) the number of complaints received by HA in the past two years about the poor
quality of medical consumables, broken down by the type of the consumables
concerned and the place of origin;
(b) if HA's procurement guidelines have specified certain safety specifications
for medical consumables; if so, of the details of the specifications; and
(c) HA's procedure for the procurement of medical consumables, including the
selection criteria and the acceptance procedure?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) In the past two years, the Hospital Authority (HA) Head Office received from
its hospitals a total of 270 reports of quality discrepancies involving 46 types
of medical consumables. A breakdown of these cases by the type of medical
consumables involved and the place of origin are given in the
Annex.
(b) HA's specifications for medical consumables are based on relevant quality
standards, such as the European Standard, the standards promulgated by the
United States Food and Drug Administration and those by the International
Organization for Standardisation (ISO). Where appropriate, the HA will also
require the vendors to meet certain quality system standards such as ISO 9001 or
ISO 13485.
During the tender evaluation process, Tender Assessment Panels comprising
relevant experts from the frontline units are set up to ensure that the product
quality standards as well as the system quality standards of the vendors are in
compliance with the specified requirements.
(c) The HA has well-established tendering processes for the procurement of
medical consumables. All purchases of medical consumables are carried out in
accordance with the procedures stipulated in the Hospital Authority Procurement
and Material Management Manual.
For purchases of tender value over HK$4 million, the tendering processes are
carried out in accordance with the World Trade Organization Agreement on
Government Procurement. Tender Assessment Panels comprising representatives and
experts from HA Head Office and user hospitals are formed to evaluate the tender
offers. The Hospital Authority Main Tender Board is the approving authority.
For purchases of tender value between HK$500,001 and HK$4 million, similar
processes are adopted by the respective clusters in the HA. The authority to
approve these tenders is vested in the Cluster Tender Boards.
As part of HA's existing practice for monitoring the quality of purchased items,
discrepancy reports are made by users or the hospital administration to the
Procurement and Materials Management Section (PMMS) at the HA Head Office for
follow-up action. The PMMS will investigate and make appropriate requests to the
vendors for improvement within two weeks. The vendors' remedial actions will
also be closely monitored by the PMMS.
Ends/Wednesday, May 25, 2005
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