Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ14: General out patient clinics
Following is a question by the Hon Leung Yiu-chung and a written reply by the
Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council
today (July 6):
Question:
It has been reported that as public out-patient services are seriously
inadequate, some elderly patients have to go to public hospitals or clinics well
before dawn on the day of consultation and wait there for up to eight hours in
order to secure a consultation chip. In this connection, will the Government
inform this Council whether it knows:
(a) if the Hospital Authority (HA) has looked into the situation of patients
queuing up for consultation chips before the opening hours of public clinics in
various districts in the past year; if so, of the findings; if not, whether HA
will do so; and
(b) HA will assist those chronically ill patients who have finished the
medicines prescribed at the last consultation, but are not able to seek
follow-up consultation and obtain the required medicines in time because the
supply of public out-patient service cannot meet the demand for it?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) As of now, the Hospital Authority (HA) operates a total of 74 General
Outpatient Clinics (GOPCs) throughout the territory, which include 18 on Hong
Kong Island, 8 in Kowloon East, 6 in Kowloon Central, 23 in Kowloon West, 11 in
New Territories East and 8 in New Territories West. The take-up rate for the
total number of attendance quota made available varies from 70.8 per cent to
99.3 per cent. The figures show that our public outpatient services still have
spare capacity to cope with the demand for different sessions in different
clinics.
HA has been monitoring the take-up rate and patients queuing up for "discs" of
each GOPC, and would redeploy manpower and resources as and when necessary in
order to enhance both the level and quality of the GOPC services.
The GOPCs operate on a system of "disc" allocation for patients on a
first-come-first-serve basis and the disc that a patient obtained determines
his/her consultation priority. The discs for the morning, afternoon and evening
sessions are generally allocated at different times of the day.
We note that there has been media coverage on patients queuing up at the GOPC of
Our Lady of Maryknoll Hospital (OLMH). It came to our knowledge that the
hospital conducted a survey at the end of last year which indicated that 74 per
cent of the responding patients were in favour of changing the practice of
distributing the discs for the morning, afternoon and evening sessions at
different times of the day to distributing the discs for all three sessions in
one go in the morning. As a result of the change, patients of this GOPC have
since arrived noticeably earlier and waited longer for a "disc".
In order to find out why patients have to queue up at the GOPC in the early
morning, HA conducted a survey outside the GOPC of OLMH between June 7 and June
9 this year. A total of 449 people were successfully interviewed, representing
about 95 per cent of the queuers. 43 per cent of the respondents were 70 of age
or above. According to the findings, around 10 per cent of the respondents
arrived at the GOPC between 6.30 am and 7 am. By 7 am, 65 per cent of the
queuers had arrived at the GOPC of Our Lady of Maryknoll Hospital.
The survey findings revealed that there were different reasons, including some
rather personal ones, as to why patients queued up at the clinic early. Some
respondents for example, said that finishing the consultation earlier in the
morning would allow them time to attend to other businesses such as household
chores. Others said they came early because they could not sleep or were used to
getting up early. Some respondents indicated that they queued up early so that
they could take up a more comfortable seat inside the clinic while waiting after
the clinic opened. Some said that they could not obtain a "disc" for the morning
session last time so they had to come earlier; and some expressed that they had
finished the medication prescribed in the previous consultation and needed to
obtain medicine again for treatment.
In response to the different needs of different patients, HA has since put
forward six measures to reduce their waiting time. These include:
1. Distributing "discs" for different sessions at different times;
2. Informing the patients of clinics with spare capacity;
3. Redeploying resources more flexibly;
4. Giving stabilized chronic patients drugs for a longer duration;
5. Allocating appointments after consultation; and
6. Introducing a Pilot Interactive Voice Response System.
(b) Measures (4) and (5) above are targetted specifically at the needs of
chronic patients in the light of their circumstances.
HA will carefully examine the possibility of giving stabilized chronic patients
drugs for a longer duration to reduce the number of their visits. Moreover, at
present about 60 per cent of the patients visiting the GOPCs are chronic
patients, of whom about one third are given an appointment after each
consultation. GOPCs will also consider allocating an appointment time
immediately after each consultation for chronic patients who require follow-up
consultations to obviate the need for them to queue up again for an appointment
within a short time.
Ends/Wednesday, July 6, 2005
Issued at HKT 13:35
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