Press Releases

Transcript of SHWF on Experts Committee

Following is a transcript of the questions and answers at a media session by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong, following the announcement of the membership of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) Experts Committee today (May 28):

Reporter: This committee just looks at the work completed on the issue, why not on the individuals? Is it because the Government is afraid that might find frauds with how the Government handled the incidents?

Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food: Definitely not. As I've said, we should separate up the objectives of reviewing the incident, to see what lessons can be learnt so that we can better prepare our system to deal with any outbreaks, or similar outbreaks, in the future. This surely must be the responsibility of the Government and of myself as the Secretary who is responsible for health, welfare and food. So it did vest squarely on me to regularly a review on our system to see how we can better prepare ourselves. And we have an international panel of nine-plus members, nine plus at least two from China, with local experts who will be helping us to do this review. So this review must be objective because it really helps us address the issues that needed to be addressed. It's part of my accountability - I must really look at what the issues are so that we can better prepare ourselves. So it's in the interest of the experts committee, of myself and the Government, to identify what lessons can be learned. If you want to talk about responsibilities, there is another structure for that. I was explaining this morning to the Legislative Council that in the accountability and responsibility of the Secretaries, there is a process whereby the Chief Executive will be reviewing the responsibility and accountability of the Secretaries because in the accountability system we have that accountability and the process for looking at whether we have fulfilled our responsibilities. As far as the rest of the structure is concerned, in the civil service and the Hospital Authority, obviously it is my responsibility and I have my own mechanisms really to assess whether individuals have acted responsibly in the matter and whether there needs to be any form of investigation. That's my responsibility. And that's part of the administrative system of review. So, if Mr Tung feels that I have not been up to scratch, obviously then, he will have to make a decision in term of what the process is to review that responsibility and accountability, whether there it needs a committee or he makes a decision, this is Mr Tung's decision. In the course of my work, I work very closely with the Department of Health and the Hospital Authority. If I see that there needs to be an accountability and the responsibility that need to be accounted for beyond our daily work, there obviously are the needs to work with the civil service if it is within the civil service, what structure would be appropriate for that accountability and responsibility to be addressed. I mean the question of that. So that's the accountability within the executive system. But if the Legislative Council wishes to pursuit this, well this is then the prerogative of the Legislative Council to review whether any one in the Government, or any bureau, or any organisation in the Government should be held accountable. But my understanding is that they are not looking for that. But if they are looking for that, then it's their prerogative to set up their own structure. But within the Government, we already have the system and the structure, both for the Secretaries who are accountable, and for the civil servants and the Hospital Authority. So there are different accountability systems. And of course in the course of our review, it is my responsibility within the Government to look at whether there should be people responsible because that is my primary duty. So the work of the experts committee has got nothing to do with this internal accountability. If we feel we need to have another process to look at the responsibilities of individuals after our own review, then obviously we will set up different structures. At the moment, our primary objective is to look at the experience in dealing with this SARS epidemic so that we can very quickly have recommendations because we really need to make the recommendations very quickly so that we can better prepare ourselves for the future. And the time frame is set to September because we do not have a lot of time.

Reporter: ...... (inaudible) for possible renewed outbreaks specifically of SARS this coming winter? And also on the question of the CDC when you set it up, have you had any indications from Guangdong on the extent to which they would cooperate in allowing more detailed surveillance for new diseases coming out, supposed just by a microscope or something?

Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food: Certainly, the prevention of infectious diseases and the review of the whole system is a key part of the work. Within that, to address any possible resurgence of SARS must be also one of the primary objectives of the experts committee because many things obviously infectious diseases are very similar but there are certain things very specific to SARS which needs to be dealt with. So we are dealing with both issues at the same time. In relation to our collaboration and cooperation with the Guangdong Province. In fact, we will have an expert group coming from the Guangdong Province tomorrow. It's part of the ongoing dialogue with them. If you remember, we already had a formal meeting where our team of experts went to Guangdong Province to have the first meeting. So we are having the second formal meeting this time in Hong Kong. The experts have been working very well and looking for further ways to collaborate. In terms of surveillance of infectious diseases, we both recognise that we need to work together because I think infectious diseases, as we know, do not recognise boundaries. There must be much closer cooperation and already since our last meetings, we already have much more detailed information from Guangdong in relation to their infectious diseases.

(Please refer to the Chinese portion)

End/Wednesday, May 28, 2003
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