Press Releases
SFH on tender results for development of private hospitals
Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Food
and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man, at a media session on the announcement of
tender results for the development of private hospitals at Wong Chuk
Hang and Tai Po at the lobby of West Wing, Central Government Offices,
Tamar, today (March 13):
Secretary for Food and Health: The Government has entered into the
Agreement and Conditions of Sale (Land Grant) as well as the Service
Deed with GHK Hospital Limited in respect of the tender for the
development of a private hospital at the piece of land in Wong Chuk
Hang today. The shareholders of this company are Singapore's Parkway
Pantai Limited and Hong Kong-listed NWS Holdings Limited, whereas the
Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong would
be a collaborating partner of this company. As for the piece of land
for private hospital development in Tai Po, we received only one
tender. Since that particular tender cannot fulfil all the basic
requirements in our tender document, we have to cancel the tender
exercise for the Tai Po site.
Reporter: Do you think the land in Tai Po is not attractive because
you have only received one tender? Do you think there is still a need
to develop new private hospitals in Hong Kong?
Secretary for Food and Health: Regarding your first question, there
are many factors that the prospective tenderers will take into
consideration. So I think there are many other factors that only the
prospective tenderers themselves will know. Regarding your question
about the need for expanding the capacity of private health-care
services, as I have pointed out earlier, we will consider firstly
proposals for service expansion of existing private hospitals. There
are at least three hospitals having plans of expanding their own
service capacity. In addition to the newly awarded piece of hospital
land today, there will be a substantial increase in the number of
private hospital beds in a few years' time. After taking into
consideration the estimated need for private hospital services, the
implementation of the Health Protection Scheme which is a voluntary
private health insurance scheme, and the market situation, we will
then decide on the use of the remaining three pieces of land for
development of private hospitals.
(Please also refer to the
Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Issued at HKT 19:05
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