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