Public Hospital Services Affected HA Calls on Employees to Resume Duty

The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:

     The Hospital Authority (HA) said that continuing industrial action has seriously affected certain emergency and essential services of public hospitals.
 
     As at 7pm today (February 5), a preliminary counting by the HA indicated more than 5 100 employees were absent from duty, including about 300 doctors, 3 100 nurses and 1 000 allied health professionals.
 
     Other severely affected departments include the Neonatal Intensive Care Units, the Accident & Emergency (A&E) Departments, Obstetrics & Gynaecology(O&G) Departments and Cardiac Catheter Laboratory services. 
 
     HA Chief Manager (Cluster Performance) Dr Ian Cheung said, "Regarding O&G services, some elective cesarean operations need to be deferred. Emergency Medicine Wards in a few A&E Departments need to be closed owing to insufficient manpower.  Elective percutaneous coronary intervention in a hospital cluster needs to be reduced by half."
 
     The HA Major Incident Control Centre will continue to closely monitor the situation of the operation of public hospitals.  Dr Cheung appeals to colleagues to return to work as soon as possible to provide services to patients in need and join hands in fighting the epidemic.  He also thanked the staff who have stayed on duty and being deployed to cope with the extra workload caused by the strike.