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SFH on nurses of Queen Mary Hospital taking sick leave (English portion)

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Following is the transcript of remarks (English portion) made by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, at a media stand-up session after attending a function today (December 4):

Reporter: (about nurses of Queen Mary Hospital taking sick leave)

Secretary for Food and Health: The Hospital Authority and the Queen Mary Hospital are going to solve this problem. The first thing is to ensure that the patients are not affected. The second thing is to make sure the staff concerned, the management, the operating theatre management and the nursing management have adequate communication to ensure that the issue is being resolved. Every hospital may need to face similar problem every now and then, particularly with accumulative patients that require surgery. The most important aspect is to ensure that the patients should not be affected, particularly those patients who are prepared to have surgery. They may be fast overnight for hours, they may be psychologically prepared for that particular surgery. It is important that they should not be affected as far as possible. If they are being deferred, the surgery should be done as soon as possible to ensure that there is no delay for their scheduled operation.

Reporter: How many patients are being affected?

Secretary for Food and Health: At the moment, I know that the sick leave pattern of the operating theatre nurses today is back to normal. They are not excessive. The problem is being resolved among the nurses and the management. I do not have the exact number of the patients that are being affected.

Reporter: (about nurses of Queen Mary Hospital taking sick leave)

Secretary for Food and Health: I do not have the details yet. But I think it is up to the management of the hospital as well as the Hospital Authority to address them. I believe they are already in dialogue about this condition.

(Please also refer to the Chinese part of the transcript)






Ends/Friday, December 4, 2009
Issued at HKT 21:20

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12 Apr 2019