Supplementary to Question No. 6
in LegCo Meeting on 7.1.87
Dr. LAM (in Cantonese) : Sir, could the Government inform this
Council whether under the existing huge work pressure, the
doctors, nurses, and medical social workers of public hospitals
would have sufficient time to provide the sort of encouragement
and care to terminally ill patients; and at present, although
there are no immediate plans to introduce hospice care in the
public sector, would the Government consider having this
particular topic considered by the Medical Development Advisory
Committee and would an annual review be undertaken?
Secretary for Health and Welfare : Sir, the staff in our
public hospitals do of course work under very considerable
pressure and it is in any
any case very difficult to say exactly
how much time
devoted to the counselling and
should be
comforting of the terminally ill,
particularly when other
the service
Personally I
patients also require intensive care; but as I have said it is
part of the duties of the staff of all hospitals to help the
dying and given the limitation of the resources available and
the physical constraints of our hospital wards,
provided is considered to be generally adequate.
would like to see hospice care much more widely available in
Hong Kong but I feel that in our present circumstances priority
must be given to the allocation of resources to such matters as
doctor : bed ratio, provision of
on. But I
the
improvement of the
infirmary beds, and
So
certainly take Dr. LAM'S