Press Releases
SFH on medical incident at PMH and human swine flu
Following is a transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Food and Health,
Dr York Chow, at a stand-up media session before attending a public function
today (April 12):
Reporter: (about the medical incident at Princess Margaret Hospital)
Secretary for Food and Health: I have not received the report from the
Hospital Authority yet. But I think the whole of the Hospital Authority is
very concerned about this case. I believe that with the investigation that
is being conducted by the hospital, we should be able to have the facts as
soon as possible.
Reporter: (about nurse training)
Secretary for Food and Health: As far as I know, this nurse is not a new
nurse in this area. She also has at least three years of experience, so I
don't think it is actually a matter of experience. It is a matter of whether
she is following the right procedure in doing this and considering every
basic type of procedure for the nursing staff.
Reporter: (about nurse training)
Secretary for Food and Health: At the moment we are training nurses through
a few sources, one is from the tertiary institutes, altogether four
universities training them. Another source is from the nursing schools of
the Hospital Authority, and some of the nursing schools are from private
hospitals as well. We project that the demand for nurses in the coming few
years would be much bigger than expected, but we are already prepared that
the number of nursing graduates for this year will amount to 1,400, which is
400 more than that in the previous year. Next year, that is 2011, there will
be 1,700 while in the year of 2012, there will be about 2,000. So for the
coming three years, we have respectively increased the number of nurses. But
for the future years, we would have to do a continuous projection and I can
foresee that we probably need to continue to increase the number of nurses.
Reporter: (about human swine flu situation)
Secretary for Food and Health: I think the human swine flu situation is
being monitored by the WHO continuously. And same for us, we have not been
slowing down in the monitoring. As far as Hong Kong is concerned, we are
still in the so-called winter peak of the flu season. But this peak is much
milder than expected. It is more dominated by Influenza B rather than H1N1.
(Please also refer to the
Chinese portion of the transcript)
Ends/Monday, April 12, 2010
Issued at HKT 17:13
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