Press Releases

Transcript of remarks by SFH and USFH at media session

Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Food and Health, Professor Sophia Chan, and the Under Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Chui Tak-yi, today (August 9):

Reporter: Dr Chui, how do you feel about changing from working for the Hospital Authority to working for the Government? Professor Chan, how would be the work separation? Would you delegate the work relating to communicating with the doctors to Dr Chui?

Under Secretary for Food and Health: I have worked in public health sector for more than 30 years and I have worked in eight different hospitals and units, starting from front line to management. I think I have enough experience and knowledge about how the public health system works. With this background, I can contribute to the work of the bureau. Of course, there are some areas which I may not be very familiar with at the present moment. I will start talking to my teams in the bureau as soon as possible.

Reporter: What do you think would be some of the work priorities?

Under Secretary for Food and Health: There are some agenda which have been started in the previous Government and the bureau, so we have to continue to work on these areas, for example the Medical Registration (Amendment) Bill. When the Legislative Council meets again, we will start the work immediately.

Secretary for Food and Health: You want to know more about the work allocation as well as whether Dr Chui will be communicating with the doctors. After Dr Chui has started his work on Monday, we had a good discussion and an initial discussion about introducing Dr Chui to the work of the Food and Health Bureau. As far as some of the work allocation is concerned, obviously our engagement work, for example engaging the Legislative Councillors in some of the meetings, such as most of the panel meetings, Dr Chui would be participating in. Regarding the Council meeting, usually the Secretary will attend. There are other engagement work, such as engaging not only the Legislative Councillors, but also District Councillors as well as our stakeholders and the community. So for all this work, we will be doing together. Obviously, there will be some division of work. As far as communication is concerned, I do not think a certain profession will only be communicating to their respective profession. So therefore, both myself and Dr Chui will be communicating with all healthcare professionals including the doctors, the nurses, the dentists, the pharmacists and everyone. We will be doing this together.

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

Ends/Wednesday, August 9, 2017
Issued at HKT 19:45
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