Replies to LegCo questions

LCQ19: Service hours of Hospital Authority's general out-patient clinics

Following is a question by the Dr Hon Kwok Ka-ki and a written reply by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (January 17):

Question:

I have received complaints that the Hospital Authority (HA), without thoroughly consulting the staff who will be affected or increasing resources and manpower, plans to extend the service hours of its general outpatient clinics to Saturdays and Sundays. The complainants have pointed out that in addition to making the staff feel that they are not respected, such an arrangement will also deprive them of the opportunity to stay with their families on Saturdays and Sundays. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:

(a) whether it knows how HA, in drawing up the above plan, consulted the staff who will be affected, including the number of staff consulted and percentage of such staff members in all the affected staff;

(b) as the Government's objectives of implementing a five-day work week are to increase the time for its employees to stay with their families and to relieve their work pressure, whether the Government has studied if the HA's plan to extend the service hours runs counter to such objectives; and

(c) whether it has planned to allocate more resources to HA in the 2007-2008 financial year so as to increase HA's manpower in order to extend the service hours of its general outpatient clinics?

Reply:

Madam President,

The Administration understands that the Hospital Authority (HA) has started to study the viability of implementing a "five-day week" scheme in its general outpatient clinics (GOPCs) since July last year. Given that the primary objective of public general outpatient service is to serve the community, the consultation sessions at GOPCs should not be reduced if the "five-day week" scheme is to be implemented. The original idea was that healthcare personnel at GOPCs would only be required to work five days a week (i.e. any five days of the week including Saturdays and Sundays), so as to relieve their work pressure and allow more time for them to stay with their families, while making it possible for GOPCs to provide consultation sessions to needy patients on Saturday afternoons and Sundays. This was intended to be a win-win situation. In formulating its proposal, HA had consulted all relevant staff from various grades. In view of the divergent views towards the proposed arrangements and certain outstanding issues such as staff deployment and support measures, HA has no plan to implement the proposed arrangement for the time being.

Our reply to the different parts of the question is as follows:

(a) When the proposal was first formulated in July last year, HA had already sought the views of the doctors in GOPCs through existing staff consultation mechanism. In the following month or so, all the staff of GOPCs was further consulted through the family medicine service co-ordinators of each hospital cluster and open forums.

(b) As stated above, the purpose of considering the implementation of a "five-day week" in GOPCs is to relieve the work pressure of the healthcare personnel in GOPCs while at the same time improving the consultation sessions currently made offered by GOPCs to the public.

(c) Public general outpatient service is primarily targeted at the underprivileged groups, including the low-income families, frail and vulnerable elders and the chronically ill. To this end, we will set up new GOPCs or strengthen the existing services in districts such as Tin Shui Wai where there has been a rapid growth in population and a larger proportion of underprivileged groups, and the existing primary healthcare facilities are in need of improvement. In overall, we will continue to improve the quality of the current general outpatient service by, for example, further promoting the family doctor service model; exploring the feasibility of purchasing service from the private sector; and establishing the GOPCs as the model for primary health care services.


Ends/Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Issued at HKT 12:22

NNNN