Hospital Expansion Schemes

More land sought for private hospitals
Expansion would ease crowding, say doctors
31 August 2007
South China Morning Post

Private doctors have urged the government to reserve more land for private hospitals to relieve the pressure on overcrowded rooms.

The private hospitals say the government must also increase training of nurses and allied health professions or any new beds will be empty.

Medical sector legislator Kwok Ka-ki said high demand over the past two months had pushed up charges for beds and operating theatres in some private hospitals and he had received complaints from private doctors.

He said charges for general surgery had risen about 17 per cent on average and for minimally invasive surgeries about 30 per cent.

Medical Association vice-president Louis Shih Tai-cho said that, worse still, some doctors could not book an operating theatre because they were full.

"Some patients who suffer from appendicitis, heart attack or stroke and need emergency surgery have no choice but to visit public hospitals, although actually they can afford the higher prices," Dr Shih said.

"This further increases the burden on the public hospitals and prolongs the overall waiting time for public services."

There are 12 private hospitals providing about 3,000 private beds. With the expansion projects in several hospitals, it is expected the number will increase to about 3,650 in 2012.

"The government should reserve more land, especially in urban areas such as West Kowloon and the old Kai Tak airport, for building new private hospitals," Dr Shih said.

But it must also offer discount on land premiums or it would be difficult to find investors in private hospitals, which generally have a high cost compared with their returns.

However, the chairman of the Private Hospitals Association, Alan Lau Kwok-lam, said more land alone would not solve the problem.

He said private hospitals had raised their charges recently mostly because of a shortage of nurses so they could offer higher salaries to maintain manpower. He said the appreciation of the euro had made medical equipment and tools more expensive. "Some new beds are left unused because there are insufficient nurses. So it's not only about a land problem."

Kwong Kwok-hay, the deputy medical superintendent of Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital, said a manpower plan to support the development of private hospitals must be drawn up. He said the hospital had recently raised charges for surgery equipment and disposable materials because of higher costs.

Hong Kong Adventist Hospital has raised the charges for its three operating theatres for several types of surgery by 4 per cent to 8 per cent; Tsuen Wan Adventist Hospital increased bed charges by 5 per cent to 7 per cent; and Baptist Hospital in Kowloon raised charges for operating theatres for major operations by 30 per cent to 40 per cent and tool and equipment fees by about 15 per cent.