Press Releases

SFH on obstetrics services (with photo)

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 at the ground floor lobby, West Wing, Central Government Offices today (April 28):

Secretary for Food and Health: We have a meeting with the Hospital Authority, the Department of Health, the representatives of the concern groups on Hong Kong's obstetrics and neonatal services, the Hong Kong College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Hong Kong College of Paediatricians and also the representatives of 10 private hospitals that provide obstetrics services in Hong Kong. We have agreed on the following objectives.

Firstly, we must put local mothers and local babies as the priority of services in both the public and private sector. Secondly, we must maintain the high professional standard and level of services to ensure all the mothers who deliver babies in Hong Kong are safe and their babies are given the best of care. Thirdly, we must also ensure that the obstetrics and gynaecology services as well as the paediatrics services in Hong Kong would receive the support for long-term development, so that they can continue to develop according to the international trend and also the necessary level of services. Fourthly, we would like to tackle the problem relating to some illegal practices of making use of Mainland pregnant women giving birth in Hong Kong.

So, we have agreed on several measures we will be taking. Firstly, we agreed that we would develop a guideline so that the obstetricians can take it as a reference when they examine and assess pregnant women who intend to have delivery in Hong Kong. The guideline will be formulated by the Hong Kong College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to ensure that it is feasible and applicable. If any pregnant women who are not suitable to travel for a long distance, we will not give them any "Certificate on confirmed antenatal and delivery booking" to facilitate their deliveries in Hong Kong. We have also asked the Department of Health to unify all the antenatal and delivery booking certificates to make them easy to trace and facilitate the Immigration Department's enforcement. Thirdly, we have also asked the Hong Kong College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and also the Hong Kong College of Paediatricians to design a clinical audit system so that we can follow up on the outcome of our maternal, paediatrics as well as neonatal services. We would also ensure those figures and analysis of the clinical audit would enhance our further modification of any policies in future. Regarding the tackling of illegal activities from the agencies that tend to cooperate with some of the obstetricians, we want to make sure that the hospitals are not cooperating with them and none of the 10 hospitals, actually all of them have denied and said they have no relationship with those agencies. Any obstetricians working with them and receiving kick-back will be violating the code of practice of the Hong Kong Medical Council. We have also agreed to set up a working group to work out details of the measures in the long term. We will meet at the first quarter of each year to determine the delivery number of the following year. So it gives us at least nine months to decide on the number of delivery in the following year. I would like to stop here to answer your questions.

Reporter: (on the number of delivery in a year)

Secretary for Food and Health: Our main concern is the obstetrics services in Hong Kong. Our bottleneck is our obstetrics services as well as our neonatal care services. That is the reason why we are trying to address it professionally. As far as Hong Kong mothers are concerned, according to the local number of maternity, we can handle them with our service capacity. We expect that perhaps next year, there should not be more than 50 000 deliveries by local women. Actually we have a service capacity to handle more than that number. But how many more we can serve is what we need to determine. In the next few weeks, the Department of Health would work together with individual private hospitals to come up with a number for each of the individual hospitals. The Hospital Authority will also work with hospitals with maternity services to determine what the number for individual hospital is. With those numbers being worked out, we can add up and determine what will be the desirable number for 2012.

Reporter: (on whether the number of delivery will be reduced by 20 per cent)

Secretary for Food and Health: We have not decided on the percentage of reduction. We need to build up from the capacity level of individual hospitals. Of course, we will look at the staffing and resources available in individual hospitals. We also look at the neonatal intensive care referral track record of individual hospitals to see whether they can control it within a possible number that the public services sector can handle.

Reporter: (on the guideline on obstetrics examination)

Secretary for Food and Health: What I said is that the Hong Kong College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the Hong Kong College of Paediatricians would assist to develop a guideline for our obstetricians.

Reporter: When will the guideline be ready?

Secretary for Food and Health: As soon as possible. It will require certain discussions among the relevant experts.

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


Ends/Thursday, April 28, 2011
Issued at HKT 21:22

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(Photo)