Replies to LegCo questions

LCQ20: Development and regulation of private hospitals

Following is a question by the Dr Hon Joseph Lee and a written reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (January 27):

Question:

The Government has granted land by way of private treaty to private hospitals for medical and health purposes, and also stipulated in its conditions of grant that such hospitals shall provide low-charge beds. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council whether:

(a) there are land leases of private hospitals at present, apart from St. Teresa's Hospital, which stipulate that such hospitals shall provide a certain number of low-charge beds; if so, of the details;

(b) any such private hospitals has violated the aforesaid conditions of grant; if so, what solutions the Government has put in place to ensure that the hospitals comply with such conditions; whether it will consider imposing fines as punishment; if it will, of the details; if not, the reasons for that; and

(c) it has considered, when granting land to private hospitals (especially at low land premiums) in the aforesaid manner in the future, requiring such hospitals to provide a certain number of low-charge beds so as to promote public-private partnership in healthcare and provide the middle class with more choices of medical services; if it has, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?

Reply:

President,

(a) & (b) The St Teresa's Hospital (STH) was given a land grant by the Government in 1996 for expansion. According to the Conditions of Grant, not less than 20% of beds in the new wing of the hospital should be low-charge beds. There are 425 beds in the new wing of STH and there are 100 low-charge beds within the hospital. Service targets of these beds are customers with lesser means or patients referred by the Hospital Authority (HA).

It is also provided in the Conditions of Grant of Tsuen Wan Adventist Hospital (TWAH) that TWAH must provide free or low charge beds. Among the 130 beds provided in TWAH, the daily fees of 107 beds is around $500 to some $600, which are lower than the costs of its ward services.

The Department of Health (DH) is vested with the power to regulate private hospitals under the Hospitals, Nursing Homes and Maternity Homes Registration Ordinance (Cap 165), and conducts regular and surprise inspections to all private hospitals. During its annual inspections of the private hospitals, DH will examine whether the standard of service of these low-charge beds meets the requirements laid down in the Ordinance and the relevant Conditions of Grant. DH will request the hospitals to make improvements in case of non-compliance with the relevant requirements. Under the Conditions of Grant, the Government can re-enter upon and take back possession of the land upon failure by the Grantee to comply with the relevant lease conditions.

(c) The Government actively promotes the development of private hospitals to increase the overall capacity of the healthcare system in Hong Kong, so to address the existing imbalance between the public and private sectors in hospital services. The middle-class with higher affordability would benefit from the private hospital services while the grassroots could also benefit from the service capacity so spared in the public sector, thereby achieving the objective of this healthcare reform initiative.

We have reserved four sites (at Wong Chuk Hang, Tseung Kwan O, Tai Po and Lantau respectively) for the development of private hospitals. The Government has invited the market to express their interest in the development of the private hospitals at these sites by the end of March 2010.

These new private hospitals should provide services of good quality and their service charges should be highly transparent. The development of new private hospitals should meet a number of special requirements covering the areas of land use, types of specialties services in hospitals, bed capacity and price transparency. We will specifically require the private hospitals to make available a certain percentage of bed days for services provided at packaged charge, so as to offer more choices to the general public.

In addition, it is our policy to promote public-private-partnership (PPP) in hospital services in order to provide more choice for patients, encourage collaboration between the public and private sectors for improvement on service and professional standards, and enable the provision of services in a more efficient and effective manner. Considering that the reserved site in Lantau is adjacent to the site reserved for the development of phase two of the North Lantau Hospital project, we also take the opportunity of this Expression of Interest exercise to solicit market interest in developing the site at Lantau by PPP.


Ends/Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Issued at HKT 15:57

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