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The diet was worked out by the Social Welfare Department in consultation with Queen Flizabeth Hospital. It is described at Appendix 2 to Annex B.
9.
The aft superstructure was also used when winching patients off the ship. The Policy Group was anxious that feigned sickness should not be used as an excuse for a large number of refugees to get ashore. It was therefore decided that only in an emergency would refugees be evacuated to hospital, and after they had first been examined by a doctory. This was achieved either by using a Wessex helicopter with a Service doctor on board to lift patients off the ship or by transferring the patients to an RN patrol craft with a doctor on board. In the event no cases of malingering by refugees were identified. On 2nd January it was discovered that there was a qualified doctor among the refugees and thereafter a daily "medical hot line" was established between a Port Health doctor and the ship, using VHF Channel 14. Requests from the ship for medicines and the evacuation of patients were normally made over this link. Patients were taken by helicopter to the landing pad at the British Military Hospital (BMH). From there they were admitted to either the Queen Elizabeth Hospital or the BMH. In the former case they were held in the custodial ward and in the latter case it was necessary to Gazette custodial wards under the Immigration Ordinance as the patients were not given authority to land and had to be kept under escort.
10.
Water was supplied to the ship's tanks by pipe from a waterboat which lay astern of the Huey Fong.
This operation was a difficult one which could not be carried out in bad weather, but there was no shortage of water on board after the delivery of 150 tons on 24th December.
ATTEMPTS TO MAKE THE SHIP SAIL
11.
Since 1976 the Hong Kong Government had observed the principle, and had succeeded in practice in ensuring, that shipwrecked survivors rescued by ocean going vessels should be landed at the vessel's first port of call, which in the case of the "Huey Fong" was Kaohsiung in Taiwan. This ship was one of a number of merchant vessels which had appeared off ports in South East Asia carrying a large number of Vietnamese who claimed to have been picked up at sea. Reports received from the British Embassy in Hanoi in the last three months of 1978 indicated that these vessels were part of an organised commercial venture which had the backing of the Vietnamese Government and which was likely to continuc. There were grounds to believe, therefore, that if those aboard the "Huey Fong" were allowed to land in Hong Kong, other ships. carrying refugees would follow in its wake. For this reason the Government's policy was to attempt to make the ship continue its voyage to Taiwan, while treating the refugees on board in a humane manner by supplying them with food, water and medical assistance.
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