Press Releases

SFH on influenza, obstetrics services and healthcare voucher scheme

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 in the Legislative Council Building today (January 19):

Secretary for Food and Health: As the Department of Health indicated this Monday, they had discovered that the number of viral isolations last week has doubled, compared with the previous weeks. It actually shows that the influenza peak is coming to Hong Kong. This peak would usually arrive in February or March, but this year it seems to be arriving a bit earlier. Compared with many countries in the northern hemisphere, particularly in Europe, which also have the predominant H1N1 virus, the morbidity and mortality is quite significant. In the UK, there are more than 90 people who died from influenza this season. I would like to urge the Hong Kong public to take care of themselves, particularly the groups that are at risk, they should have vaccination as soon as possible. According to the experts, the vaccine usually works best two weeks after the injection and the anti-body would only rise to the top level after about two weeks. So it is much better to have it early than late. I would also like to take this opportunity to urge a particular sector, that is the healthcare workers, to receive vaccination not only because they are facing higher risk compared with the general public, they also need to look after patients. If they get infected unfortunately, they would also infect patients. So this is something I think is important.

Reporter: (on Guillain Barre Syndrome)

Secretary for Food and Health: The association of Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS) with the vaccination has not been fully documented so far. At the same time, in Hong Kong, we have this type of neurological presentation in more than 40 to 60 patients a year. When we look at the seasonal trend of these patients, the monthly statistics show that there is no increase in the last few months, compared with previous months since we introduced the vaccination programme. It shows that the vaccination itself is very safe.

Reporter: (on the seriousness of H1N1 and influenza B)

Secretary for Food and Health: According to the influenza experts, the symptoms of H1 virus, that is influenza A H1 virus, is usually more severe than the H3 as well as the influenza B virus. That is the reason why I think it is important to note that if the H1 virus is going to dominate this season's influenza, then we can expect more complications and morbidity, and perhaps even more mortality in Hong Kong.

Reporter: (on provision of obstetrics services at public hospitals)

Secretary for Food and Health: I explained to the legislators earlier on that the decision to have an obstetrics unit in a particular district hospital is related to the maternity requirement of that particular district. In the expert committee on obstetrics and gynaecology service of the Hospital Authority, they have decided that 3,000 deliveries a year is the so-called "limit", the minimum number that requires to have the obstetrics unit to be set up. In North District, so far the statistics show that they have about 1,600 deliveries each year. So it falls short from the requirement. More importantly, the concentration of services at Prince of Wales Hospital, that looks after the New Territories East Cluster, would be able to cater for all the deliveries of that particular cluster and related districts. Because of the concentration of expertise there, the standard of care would be very much better than splitting up the unit into different small units.

Reporter: (on healthcare voucher scheme)

Secretary for Food and Health: We are reviewing the healthcare voucher scheme in February and will be able to report to the Legislative Council in March. By that time, we will be able to tell the public the conclusions we have reached since the introduction of the voucher two years ago. At the moment, it is too premature to say anything about the conclusion because our objective is to ensure more people be able to choose their doctors in the community close to their home, particularly in the elderly patient group. The voucher is to enhance this practice and behaviour by subsidising some of the expenses, so this is a very important policy on our part. We want to make sure that there is also cooperation on the professional side to ensure that the old folks are not having extra burden or paying more or less the same type of fees they used to pay without subsidy. I think this is a very important part.

Reporter: (on punishment of abusive use of healthcare voucher)

Secretary for Food and Health: If we find anybody who abuses the system, of course we can take them off the list, not allowing them to use voucher any more. But so far, we have not actually exercised that (power). We have audited some of the use of vaccination voucher so far, and you can see that we have taken one doctor to court because of that.

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



Ends/Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Issued at HKT 15:56

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