Replies to LegCo questions
LCQ16: Manpower of nursing staff in Hospital Authority
Following is a question by the Dr Hon Joseph Lee and a written reply by the
Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council
today (January 17):
Question :
Regarding the manpower of nursing staff in public hospitals, will the Government
inform this Council whether it knows:
(a) the number of nursing staff at all ranks in various hospital clusters of the
Hospital Authority (HA) who departed in the past six months and their respective
percentages in the total numbers of nursing staff concerned, with a breakdown by
hospital departments;
(b) the number of nursing staff employed by the above hospital clusters in the
past six months to fill the relevant vacancies; and
(c) the total outstanding time-off hours so far accumulated by the nursing staff
in each hospital cluster and HA's solution to the problem of accumulation of
outstanding time-off hours resulting from the shortage of nursing staff?
Reply :
Madam President,
(a) From April to November 2006, a total of 402 nursing staff left the Hospital
Authority (HA). A breakdown on the wastage during this period by rank and
hospital clusters is at Annex A1.
The breakdown of wastage by hospital departments is at Annex A2. The wastage
rate of each department ranges from around 2% to 4%. Departments which
experienced a relatively higher proportion of wastage include Paediatrics,
Ophthalmology, Intensive Care Unit, and Cardio-thoracic Surgery. As there are
around 4 000 nurses deployed to different departments from the central pool, the
exact strength of nurses in each department is not constant. Hence we are
providing the range of overall wastage rate.
(b) The total number of intake of nursing staff from April to November 2006 is
498. The breakdown by cluster at Annex B.
(c) The accumulation of compensation-off (CO) in the HA hospitals has improved
over the past six months. The average CO was 1.1 days per nurse in December 2006
compared with that of 1.7 days per nurse in June 2006. A table showing the trend
of CO per nurse is at Annex C. The HA has been actively addressing the issue of
accumulation of CO, through employment of additional nurses and Temporary
Undergraduate Nursing Students (TUNS), as well as more flexible utilisation of
continuous night shift.
Ends/Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Issued at HKT 12:13
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Attachment:
Annexes to LCQ16