Press Releases

Transcript of remarks by Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food at a media session after the opening and blessing ceremony of St Teresa's Hospital Extension

Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong, at a media session after the opening and blessing ceremony of St Teresa's Hospital Extension today (December 3):

Reporter: A&E and also chilled chickens?

Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food: I just want to say that for the utilisation of emergency services, it's not meaningful to take comparisons on the day-to-day basis because you need to understand that there are great fluctuations in the utilisation of emergency services. Based on the total of four days of our experience in the emergency care, you compare this with the same four days of the previous week, the utilisation has decreased by about eight per cent. But if you compare it to the last month, the utilisation has decreased by 13 per cent. It is very difficult to make comparison on a short-term basis because there are many factors that contribute to the fluctuations in the A&E utilisation because there are seasonal variations. There are certain times of the year when there are more people going to A&E. When the weather changes, there tends to be more people attending the emergency services. So you have to factor in all these factors before you can look at what the total effect is. We need a much longer period to look at the total impact of the effect of emergency services. You cannot just use one day's activities to compare to last week's activities. Oh, today's risen by 24 per cent, tomorrow's gone down by one per cent or whatever. I mean those figures are not meaningful. So I think the message is that we will look at this later on in a much boarder context and look at what the impact has been. But this has to be studied much deeper because it is a very complex study in terms of trying to account for all the various variables in the utilisation and see what impact these charges have made. We are certainly in no hurry to raise the fees of A&E. Certainly we have already said that the charge would be $100 and then in April if and when the moratorium on fees and charges are lifted, we have already said that we will be introducing new fees. That has not changed. I think certainly the utilisation of the A&E services has been influenced as far as we can see from the very short experience that we had, mainly targetting at the non-emergency users.

Reporter: The chilled chickens, there are safety concerns there?

Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food: Safety concerns? What safety concerns are there?

Reporter: Because it takes 36 hours before it is taken to the market and a scientist is saying that this makes the risk of food poisoning....

Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food: We will certainly speak to whoever has got scientific evidences. I know that the department is talking to the various experts. Based on the international experiences and based on our expert advice and assessments the products that we bring in are absolutely safe because the way that these chilled chickens are processed goes through a very very vigorous process. There are certain farms we certified to bring in the chickens. They make sure the chickens that are brought in the plant are healthy. In the plant there is a very good processing system where the entrails and the crops are pulled out and they are washed and cleaned thoroughly. So there is really very little risk of infections. And even the bath that they talked about there is a counter-current. There is a counter-current that sweeps the water away from the chickens so as the chickens chill, they go into the very clean part of the water. So you are not putting chickens into a bath and stew them because you are really chilling them. These are all consistent with international practices where you chill them. There is a date when the chickens were processed and a date which is use-by date, which is seven days which is consistent with international practices.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion)

Tuesday, December 3, 2002